VW insiders say deliveries could be just two or three years away if reaction is favourable

The star of the Detroit motor show was without question the Volkswagen Concept BlueSport. Intended to show what a budget VW roadster might be like, there was a buzz surrounding the car not only because of the way it looks, but also because it appears tantalisingly close to being production-ready.

VW has presented two other open-top concepts in recent years: the ultimately doomed EcoRacer and the Concept R. This new car neatly combines the philosophy of the former with rakish looks similar to the latter. Despite it being just eight months since the project began, VW insiders were saying deliveries could be just two or three years away, should reaction at the show be favourable.

The BlueSport is mid-engined and rear-wheel drive, a market almost handed to VW on a plate with the demise of the Toyota MR2 and the lukewarm response to the re-born MG TF. That leaves the front-engine, rear-drive Mazda MX-5 as its key competitor, and production BlueSport prices would shadow those of the Japanese roadster.

While in Detroit, evo met up with VW’s new director of creative design, Flavio Manzoni. He told us he was very pleased with the Ital Design-created concept, particularly the car’s front-end treatment, as he was never a fan of the deep, Audi-like ‘face’ that had dominated recent VWs until the arrival of the Scirocco.

‘it’s 80 per cent likely that the bluesport will go into production’

Manzoni was keen to stress that the BlueSport would be a ‘sub-Golf’ car rather than a clever offshoot of the Golf/Scirocco formula. It would be based on all-new suspension and a subframe that will appear on the next-generation Polo.

The concept at Detroit boasted a 2 litre TDI engine with 178bhp and 258lb ft and mated to a DSG dual-clutch transmission. In a car weighing around 1200kg that equates to suitably sporty performance figures of 6.2sec to 100kph and a top speed of 225kph, but untypical economy for a sports car of 5.6L/100km and, more impressively, a mere 113g/km of CO2 emissions – that’s a smidgen more than a Citroën C1 and a figure that would qualify the BlueSport as an ultra-low emissions vehicle.

And this is where that name comes in. After car makers risked being accused of making false promises if they tagged their cars with the word ‘green’, an unspoken agreement has seen ‘blue’ become the new world-saving hue. So BlueSport it is.

One way or another, VW’s concept ticked almost all the boxes at Detroit, being desirable yet also capable of turning the image of sports cars on its head at a time when the performance market is struggling. You can bank on there also being a TSI petrol engine or two, of course, with 1.4- and 2 litre turbo units being likely options, although a next-generation platform could mean next-generation engines that we don’t know about yet.

There could even be a whole new family of cars on the way. Barely a car goes on sale in the Volkswagen Group without its parts being shared with another model, so we could well gain a handful of new fun roadsters in the coming years. Should the BlueSport get signed off for production, insiders hint that an even sportier SEAT variant is a near certainty, while Audi- and Porsche-badged versions aren’t impossible. A modern-day 914? Don’t rule it out completely.

The main driving force behind the BlueSport project within VW is Dr Ulrich Hackenburg, the board member responsible for product development. He has always believed that VW should build a Lotus rival and, as such, was instrumental in setting up the alliance with KTM to produce the X Bow. However, plans to brand that car as a VW product stalled when it was deemed too extreme.

Hackenberg told evo that the likelihood of the BlueSport going into production was around 80 per cent, and that public and press response at Detroit would play a part in raising or lowering that figure. Had product bosses polled anyone on press day, they’d have repeatedy met the same two-word response: ‘Build it’.