We suddenly feel like crashing through sand dunes.
German juggernaut Volkswagen have arrived at the Geneva motor show with quite the looker in tow, in the form of the Volkswagen I.D. Buggy concept. Envisioned as a modern-interpretation of the Meyers Manx dune-muncher from the 70s & 80s, the I.D. Buggy takes all that’s good with VW’s modern design language and melds it onto a package that’s decidedly contemporary.
As with all I.D. cars, the Buggy rides on VW’s all-electric MEB platform, though it’s only two-wheel drive in its standard iteration with just one electric motor employed. This means that just 150kW and 309Nm is transmitted through the 18-inch alloys wrapped in BFGoodrich tyres, which means a century-sprint time of 7.2-seconds, but also a driving range of 250km on a single charge.
Volkswagen says that a second motor could be added, but didn’t detail the pros and cons of such a setup. With all four wheels driven the driving range could decrease somewhat, but that’d be offset by performance gains. Additionally, Volkswagen said that the upper-body of the Buggy is removable, which reveals a “world of possibilities for third-party manufacturers,” which to us feels like a nod to Bruce Meyers, the creator of the Meyers Manx which in turn inspired the Volkswagen I.D. Buggy we see here.
There’s no mention of whether or not Volkswagen will produce the I.D. Buggy, let alone in what sort of numbers. While VW’s been somewhat generous by giving us the I.D. Buzz (which is this century’s version of the iconic VW Microbus), the I.D. Buggy seems even more a flight of fancy than the Buzz, as the latter could still be somewhat justified by its commercial applications in addition to its life as a zero-emissions passenger cars. But who knows – if MEB’s just that cheap to manufacture, maybe VW will throw us the Buggy just to make us smile.
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