Today, car tester Christoph Bauer is introducing us to a VW sports car that never got the respect
it deserved: the Corrado G60.
The Scirocco secured Volkswagen's place in the segment of affordable sports compact coupés.
The Corrado was conceived as its successor.
Company strategists were demanding lower fuel consumption and greater comfort at a more
affordable price.
In other words -- better, but cheaper.
The response was to keep making the Scirocco, and aim the Corrado at the premium end of
the sector.
As Christoph tells it, Volkswagen's development team got to work on a new sports car in the
mid-1980s under the project name Taifun -- harking back to the wind theme behind names like Scirocco
and Passat.
Eventually, they realized the image of the Taifun as a destructive natural force wasn't
ideal, so the PR department took the Spanish Verb "correr“, meaning “run” and morphed
it into “Corrado”.
By 1988, he says, they had VW's new sports compact ready for series production.
A TV ad introduced the Corrado as Volkswagen's first real sports car.
The new model's interior was adapted partly from the new Passat 3, while much of the platform
technology was taken from the 2nd-generation VW Golf.
The modular design ensured high quality, while keeping assembly costs down.
The ad says 'The Corrado by Volkswagen.
This is how we imagine a sports car.'
Christoph explains that VW added a few technological highlights into the Corrado mix, hoping to
create a marketing image of the Corrado as a high-tech vehicle.
It boasted the most powerful engine in VW's history, with 1-point-8-liters, 4-cylinders
and a G-lader supercharger putting out 160 horsepower.
And to keep all four wheels on the ground, it was graced with a retractable rear spoiler
like the new Porsche 911.
So the fastest way to draw admiring glances was to drive up to the village disco in a Corrado G60.
But Christoph isn't sure that was the precise image VW was aiming for.
Listing at 42-thousand, 500 Deutschmarks, the VW Corrado cost about as much as a 5-series
Beemer or a Mercedes E class - out of reach for most of its young target buyers.
When purchased second-hand, many Corrados were chewed up by tuners and customizers:
widened, lowered and souped up.
Christoph doesn't think the new Corrado G60 needed any of that.
A car reviewer once wrote, 'Between 15-hundred and 63-hundred revs, it moves ahead at near
relentless speed.'
This was mainly because the G-lader scroll-type supercharger gave the car plenty of pick-up
at lower rev bands.
It leaped from zero to 100 kilometers per hour in 8-point-3 seconds, topping out at
225 - incredibly fast for a front-wheel drive at that time.
If Christoph blatantly overdoes it, the car might understeer a little.
But he just has to ease off the gas to get it back on track in the curves.
He's having fun.
Christoph knows that, at the time, VW's marketing department was very proud of the new rear
spoiler concept.
It extends automatically when the speed hits 120 kilometers per hour.
And when you drive down to the ice cream parlor and want to flaunt it a little, you can put
it up manually.
But in other respects, the Corrado's look reflects many elements of VW's design language
in the 1990s: clear lines, smooth surfaces and rounded corners - a little boring, in
Christoph's view.
Optically, he definitely wouldn't call it a milestone.
The compact VW Corrado made up for its pedestrian design with extra practicality.
The big hatchback allowed easy access to the spacious cargo space.
The rear seats accommodated two adult passengers.
And the generous standard equipment package was unmatched at the time -- with A-B-S, power
steering, sport seats, thermal-insulated glass and heated wing mirrors.
A highlight for Christoph is this red G60 emblem, indicating the legendary G-lader supercharger
under the hood.
It's a belt-driven compressor that creates higher gauge pressure, even at low revs, and
provides a steady increase in thrust without the infamous turbo lag.
The major downside , says Christoph, is that if you floor it with the oil temperature too
low or after a do-it-yourself tuning, it can total the G-lader.
One reviewer wrote at the time that it's lots of fun to drive, but takes a toll on your nerves.
The turbo-charged 1-point-8-liter four-cylinder engine puts out a very respectable 160 horsepower…
In the late 1980s, that was enough to keep up with most Porsches.
Christoph tells us that VW was very proud of its new showcase car, but it didn't achieve
the hoped-for market success - even if the practical 4-cylinder aspirated engines and
somewhat more impressive VR6 would've satisfied most demands.
Only about 97-thousand Corrados were ever built - way too few by VW's standards.
In the end, the Corrado's high price were its doom.
But not before it had set new benchmarks as a practical, high-quality sports car with
robust standard technology that was nearly unparalleled at the time.
Christoph winds up by saying Volkswagen might not have earned much cash off the Corrado,
but the boost to the image of a brand seen as boring and utilitarian was invaluable.
The Corrado showed the world that VW could be more.
And compact high-performance vehicles became a fixture of the manufacturer's model range.
Special features like the G-lader and the automatic rear spoiler keep the Corrado on
classic-car fan radar even now.
He says it was definitely a milestone in automotive history.
But a long time would pass before the Corrado had an official successor.
Twelve years, to be exact.
In 2008, Volkswagen finally rolled out another sports coupe in the Corrado spirit.
But they decided to call it the new Scirocco.