Heads up on the VW Space Up
From the Tokyo auto show, the debut of another member of the German automaker's "new small family" line of concept cars.
Candace Lombardi
In a software-driven world, it's easy to forget about the nuts and bolts. Whether it's cars, robots, personal gadgetry or industrial machines, Candace Lombardi examines the moving parts that keep our world rotating. A journalist who divides her time between the United States and the United Kingdom, Lombardi has written about technology for the sites of The New York Times, CNET, USA Today, MSN, ZDNet, Silicon.com, and GameSpot. She is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET.
Is there such a thing as a mini minivan?
Volkswagen's Space Up, which was unveiled at the 2007 Tokyo auto show on Wednesday, certainly seems to qualify.
The four-door Space Up is just 3.68 m (12 feet) by 1.63 m (5 feet) compared to the VW Touran minivan, which is roughly 4.3 m (14 feet) by 1.8 m (6 feet).
The Space Up follows the two-door Up that debuted at the 2007 Frankfurt Auto Show. As with the Up concept car, the drive train for all of the gasoline, diesel, and electric drives for this line of cars would be located in the rear, as they were on the old Beetle, according to VW.
