Volkswagen Jetta Project R GT

Here is the scoop on the Jetta: Seems what America wants is 550 hp out of a 3.2-liter, twin-turbo, twin-intercooled V6. The regular production 3.2 makes a pale 240 hp by comparison. The SEMA Jetta also gets its own VW-designed bodywork, 19-inch Michelins, a roll cage, Recaro seats, harnesses, fuel cell, and an auto-jacking system if you want to change your tires quickly during pit stops.

Is Volkswagen still cool?

It certainly used to be. The GTI was the first cool import car—with power, handling and a cachet different enough that the youth of America could own it and not feel like they were following the crowd. And all you have to do is look at the R32 to see that Volkswagen has never lost that nebulous concept of car cool.

Yet VW seems to feel a little lost here in America, like maybe the brand is no longer aspirational, even to the entry buyer. So it has entered a long journey to find itself, a journey that will pass through the Specialty Equipment Market Association tuner gala in Las Vegas and then move on to who knows where.

To start its search, VW formed a team of 25 people, not all Germans, set up some of them in the company’s Simi Valley design studio, a few more at VW’s United States corporate headquarters in Troy, Michigan, and placed three very lucky imagineers in a Malibu Beach house and told them “to study the American car culture and find out what sells cars in America,” according to a company spokesman.

You will see preliminary results of all this navel-gazing on VW’s first-ever SEMA stand, the first European manufacturer to have a stand-alone presence at the show. On that stand will be three new iterations of current VW product offerings, the Touareg, Passat and Jetta.

Here is the scoop on the Jetta: Seems what America wants is 550 hp out of a 3.2-liter, twin-turbo, twin-intercooled V6. The regular production 3.2 makes a pale 240 hp by comparison.

The SEMA Jetta also gets its own VW-designed bodywork, 19-inch Michelins, a roll cage, Recaro seats, harnesses, fuel cell, and an auto-jacking system if you want to change your tires quickly during pit stops.

What does the show Jetta mean? Some of the parts will eventually be integrated into VW’s R line but, “These concept cars are more thematic
of where Volkswagen would like to go,” according to the spokesperson.

We will learn more at the SEMA show, where VW’s brand-new U.S. CEO Adrian Hallmark will make his first public speech in his new role, addressing some things like horsepower and how much of it we need, as well as where the company is headed. We think it will be a direction we might like to follow.

and an auto-jacking system if you want to change your tires quickly during pit stops.