Volkswagen unveiled six new variants today between the Virtus and the Taigun. Now, these included some special colour schemes and trims, but the most important bit was the return of the manual transmission in the Virtus. Now this isn’t a big deal considering the Skoda Slavia, which is basically the same car under the skin, was always available with a 1.5-litre engine and a manual transmission.
But when you look at the market around the Virtus, you can notice that one suddenly has a few more options when it comes to the enthusiasts. The Skoda Slavia was the first to ignite the fire by offering a 150bhp sedan with a manual option followed by the new Hyundai Verna. In fact, Hyundai managed to surprise us by offering the latter with a 1.5-litre turbo unit putting out a very impressive 158bhp and putting a 6-speed manual transmission in it. And now, Volkswagen has gone ahead and come out with the Virtus GT manual as well.
So, suddenly you have three excellent sedans putting out 150bhp and more with a three-pedal layout. While we’re only harping about turbo petrol, let us include the original manual enthusiast sedan, the Honda City. Now the City might not boast the same kind of impressive output or have an edge regarding outright performance, but it is a fun-to-drive sedan in every sense of the word.
With SUVs ruling the roost and new ones spawning in every segment, it seemed like it was the end of the road for sedans as a segment. Imagining them in powerful manual avatars was pretty much a distant dream. But clearly and thankfully for us enthusiasts, that is not the case. Hyundai clearly believes in the segment and foresees that it will grow in the future. Again with the Virtus, Volkswagen says there was a steady demand of people asking for the Virtus 1.5 with a manual transmission. So clearly, the market for sedans is slowly coming into the picture. With consumers wanting to evolve and looking for more excitement in products, this could finally signal the return of more performance-oriented products. In another space, Maruti Suzuki has also brought back its Boosterjet engine, which is now being manufactured locally. Can these performance sedans push Maruti to come up with a ‘Boosted’ version of the next-gen Ciaz? Well, we certainly have some exciting times coming up ahead, so keep watching this space for more!