Volkswagen CrossBlue Coupe photos arrive early

We didn’t expect the CrossBlue Coupe to look quite as dramatically ‘squashed’ as the design sketches, and it doesn’t. But it does look like a decidedly rakish SUV with a distinctly more coupe look than the full-sized CrossBlue SUV we saw at Detroit in January.

Apart from being sleeker than its boxy sibling, the CrossBlue Coupe is also less compendious, and drops the full 7-seats the Crossblue had in favour of a 5-set layout. The price you pay for a stylish coupe roofline.

Apart from looking like a sporty VW Coupe SUV, the CrossBlue Coupe also looks like it will be quite lively, with power coming from a turbo V6 powering the front wheels and a pair of electric motors the back – Twin Drive BlueMotion in VW’s language – good for an output around 400bhp and a sub-6 second 0-62mph.

We have no idea if the CrossBlue Coupe is actually heading for production, but it is based on the same MQB platform VW used for the CrossBlue Concept so it seems a perfectly viable production car. In fact, the CrossBlue and the CrossBlue Coupe could well be VW’s replacement for the Touareg, and aimed at BMW’s full-sized SUV twins – the X5 and X6.

More when VW make the CrossBlue Concept official at Shanghai over the weekend.

By Cars UK