Volkswagen Golf Tdi Low Miles 4 Dr Hatchback Automatic Diesel 2.0l L4 Sfi Dohc 1 on 2040-cars

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Porsche-Piech buy 10% stake in VW's holding company

In August, 2009, as the scuttled merger of Porsche and Volkswagen had gone bad and Porsche was backed up against the ropes, Porsche Automobil Holding SE (PAHSE) relinquished a ten-percent stake in itself to Qatar Holdings as well as options it held on 17 percent of VW shares. The sale meant that, for the first time since the founding of the company 61 years before, an entity outside the Porsche and Piech families had a say in the running of PAHSE.
Buying that ten-percent stake back returns full ownership to the two families, the holding company's sole possession being ownership of 50.7 percent of VW's common shares. The price paid wasn't disclosed, but at market rates the purchase would be worth close to $1.25 billion. Qatar intends to hold onto the 17-percent stake it has in Volkswagen.

Volkswagen kills planned 10-speed DSG

If there are two things in this wild and crazy industry that keep growing, they are the size of cars and the number of gears in their transmissions. It wasn't ten years ago that cars with six forward gears – either manually or automatically shifted – were a relative rarity. Now, there are a multitude of sub-$30,000 cars with at least a six-speed automatic. But while eight- and nine-speed automatics are becoming increasingly common, no automaker has delivered a production ten-speed automatic (which may be a good thing, considering the reception to most nine-speed gearboxes). Ford and General Motors were collaborating on one as recently as April 2013, and Hyundai has was allegedly working on one way back in 2011. Most recently, though, Volkswagen announced a ten-speed, dual-clutch automatic in November 2014. And now, less than two years later, the project has apparently been shelved. That's according to our Vegemite-loving friends at Motoring.com.au, which report that both the cost and complexity of project has proved unfeasible for VW. "In the end, we had to balance what our priorities were with our transmissions and other things are more important and more urgent," an unnamed source at the Frankfurt Motor Show told the Aussie website. The ten-speed DSG was slated for a number of three- and four-cylinder models from VAG's entire range of affordable vehicles. It was also, allegedly, to feature in the ultra-high-performance Golf R400, Motoring reports. It's unclear how its cancellation will impact the company's future projects, if VW will look elsewhere for its small-car gearboxes, of if there's another – perhaps conventional – new transmission in the pipeline. Currently, VW's highest gear-count dual-clutch is the seven-speed DSG, shown above with company CEO Martin Winterkorn.

Volkswagen NMC production guise caught in China

Chinese car site Autohome has what are said to be the first pictures of the Volkswagen New Midsize Coupe concept in production form. VW's NMC was just introduced at the Beijing Motor Show, while background chatter indicated it would go on sale in China, Autohome says that production version will be built at the Shanghai-Volkswagen plant in Ningbo, and the retail guise could be introduced at the Guangzhou Motor Show in November and go on sale that same month.
Assuming this is the production car, its main lines have made the jump from the concept but with less fine detailing, a silver hue and with conventional VW wheels it's lost a little bit of oomph. Still, a few checkmarks on the option sheet can fix most of that, the shape remains handsome and the 2.0-liter turbo underhood keeps performance peppy and mileage frugal enough. You can head to Autohome for a couple more photos of a sedan we'd be happy to make room for over here.