Get slick in the city with a new automatic gearbox for the VW up!

The Volkswagen up! – the world’s most enthusiastically punctuated car – now has a nifty new gearbox available, the automated manual (ASG).  It is available as an option now for an additional £595 on three- and five-door variants. This means you can have this box from £9,675 for the three-door version.

It’s pretty simple – there’s the usual Drive, Neutral and Reverse (but no Park, that’s another button), but the driver can change gears manually using the gear lever too. If you can’t be bothered with that, the good news is the gear shift points have been calculated for maximum fuel efficiency and low CO2 emissions.

While an automatic gearbox can take up room and add weight to a car, VW have designed the up! gearbox to be space-efficient and at 30kg, it is just 3kg more than the manual. There are two electromechanical actuators on the gearbox to control gate selection and engage and disengage gears while another electric motor controls the clutch.

VW hopes the ASG gearbox, a great alternative to their very successful DSG which also offers the convenience of an automatic with the option of shifting it yourself, proves popular among up! drivers, many of whom will be city motorists.

ASG-equipped up! models are now available to order with deliveries expected in October. A fully electric version of the up! is expected late 2013.


By Georgia Lewis

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