Volkswagen up! India plans accelerated

It seems that Volkswagen has moved up its schedule to bring its latest mini car, the up! to India. A whole bunch of the cars, in both 2-door and 4-door guise have been caught testing in and around Pune, near its home base of Chakan. 

In fact, there are reports of the up! being spotted undergoing testing all around the country. So it's a no-brainer that we're going to see this car in India sooner than predicted. The up! will be slotted below the Polo, in the sub 5 lakh rupee range. 

It is a very important move for VW, as a bulk of the Indian market operates in this range. The market leader in small cars, Maruti Suzuki dominates thanks to reliability, efficiency and value-for-money, and VW has to get all these factors right if the up! is to do well in India.

Apart from this the German auto giant also plans on building SUVs based on both the Polo hatch and even the smaller up! The project timeframe for these cars is 2016 and there's a good chance that VW will meet this deadline, considering how popular small SUVs have suddenly become amongst all manufacturers, the prime example being Ford's upcoming subcompact SUV, the EcoSport.