Volkswagen CrossBlue Coupe photos arrive early

We have the first photos of the VW CrossBlue Coupe – a full-size SUV Coupe – ahead of its debut this weekend at the Shanghai Motor Show.

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Yesterday we had the first sketches of a new full-sized SUV with a coupe roofline from Volkswagen – the VW CrossBlue Coupe – and now, ahead of its debut at the Shanghai Motor Show, we get the first photos.

We didn’t expect the CrossBlue Coupe to look quite as dramatically ‘squashed’ as the design sketches, and it doesn’t. But it does look like a decidedly rakish SUV with a distinctly more coupe look than the full-sized CrossBlue SUV we saw at Detroit in January.

Apart from being sleeker than its boxy sibling, the CrossBlue Coupe is also less compendious, and drops the full 7-seats the Crossblue had in favour of a 5-set layout. The price you pay for a stylish coupe roofline.

Apart from looking like a sporty VW Coupe SUV, the CrossBlue Coupe also looks like it will be quite lively, with power coming from a turbo V6 powering the front wheels and a pair of electric motors the back – Twin Drive BlueMotion in VW’s language – good for an output around 400bhp and a sub-6 second 0-62mph.

We have no idea if the CrossBlue Coupe is actually heading for production, but it is based on the same MQB platform VW used for the CrossBlue Concept so it seems a perfectly viable production car. In fact, the CrossBlue and the CrossBlue Coupe could well be VW’s replacement for the Touareg, and aimed at BMW’s full-sized SUV twins – the X5 and X6.

More when VW make the CrossBlue Concept official at Shanghai over the weekend.