Is this VW’s upcoming new SA-built small SUV?
A fresh teaser image released in Brazil seemingly gives us our first official glimpse of the new small SUV that Volkswagen will eventually build in South Africa, too…
Earlier this year, Volkswagen announced a R4-billion investment in its South African operations, confirming plans to start building an as-yet-unrevealed new small SUV at its Kariega plant from 2027. And now, thanks to the German firm’s Brazilian arm, we seemingly have our first official glimpse of this mystery model.
As a reminder, VW’s Brazilian division led “the design and development” of this new small SUV, though the Kariega-built version – which will be produced alongside the Polo hatch and Polo Vivo – will eventually be adapted to “local and continental requirements”, according to VW Group Africa. In addition, a unibody bakkie may well be spun off the new small SUV (and thus also built at Kariega).
While South Africa will have to wait until 2027 for this MQB-A0-based model to come online, Brazil is scheduled to commence sales of the newcomer in 2025. As such, a teaser campaign has just kicked off in the Latin American country, with VW revealing the above image at the “Rock in Rio” music festival (which it sponsors) in Rio de Janeiro.
Though we’ve lightened the shadowy teaser image you see above, it still doesn’t give too much away. That said, we do get a look at the new vehicle’s lighting signature as well as its grille design (the latter split by a horizontal bar), along with an idea of the front-bumper styling. The vehicle in the teaser image furthermore wears roof rails and features contours in its roof panel.
Interestingly, while Volkswagen has yet to reveal the name of the new small SUV (which is due to slot in below the T-Cross), it has invited the Brazilian public to guess the badge that will be used, saying “we can only give one hint: the name will have up to 5 letters”. Whether the vehicle ends up wearing the same moniker in South Africa, of course, remains to be seen.
Still, earlier in 2024, Cars.co.za reported that the German firm had filed as many as 7 new trademark applications in South Africa, with each fresh badge starting with the letter “T”. Since VW’s current naming convention sees the title of each crossover and SUV in its range – including the T-Cross, Taigo, T-Roc, Tiguan and Touareg – begin with this letter, the newcomer’s eventual designation may just come from this list.
As a reminder, Volkswagen’s head office in Wolfsburg applied to trademark the following 7 badges (in class 12, covering vehicles) in South Africa on 18 January 2024: Tera, Teria, Taroko, Tivas, Tyber, Therion and Tamiz. For the record, VW also filed to trademark all of these monikers with the German Patent and Trade Mark Office, making these applications between July and September 2023.
In addition, we discovered that applications to protect all 7 nameplates were furthermore made in various other African markets (in February 2024), including Ghana, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Kenya and Tunisia. VW, of course, has a significant presence in each of these countries. Intriguingly, of the 7 names in question, VW filed to trademark only the “Tera” and “Therion” badges in Brazil (along with “Hera”).
Look out for more teaser images – and eventually a full reveal – from Brazil over the next few weeks and months…
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What might VW’s new SA-built small SUV be called?