Something we’ve been told to look forward to with the electric transformation and skateboard platforms is return of body styles that didn’t make sense when powered by gas, like coupes and convertibles. And any time the words “Volkswagen” and “coupe” appear near one another, you won’t need to wait long to hear the word “Scirocco” (or, even better, Corrado). Autocar said it heard from a “high-ranking insider” in the VW Group that business planners have been considering a new Scirocco as a battery-electric offering, ready to hit the market around 2028 if given approval.
Although the historic Sciroccos from the nameplate’s birth in 1974 to the end of its third generation in 2017 (pictured) were based on the Golf chassis, the reborn nameplate would be a platform sibling with Porsche’s next-generation battery-electric Boxster and Cayman. The proposed fourth-gen, electric Audi TT and a Seat Cupra Dark Rebel are the fourth and fifth candidates to ride on the same chassis, spreading development costs and potentially pleasing enthusiast crowds.
Doing so would separate a potential Scirocco from the coming battery-electric Golf, due around the same time. Porsche’s putting its products on the PPE architecture. The PPE employs Porsche’s “E-Core” battery arrangement, stacking the pack into a T shape along a center tunnel and crosswise behind the cabin. According to the report, it sounds like the Scirocco and the TT will be more than pure two-seaters, which could make for interesting E-Core packaging. At VW, the second-generation ID.3 that’s becoming the ninth-generation Golf will sit on the SSP architecture with the battery pack sandwiched in the floor.
The Scirocco’s supposedly being considered with a single-motor rear-wheel-drive powertrain good for about 300 horsepower, and a dual-motor all-wheel-drive powertrain good for about 400 hp and a Scirocco R designation. Either one would result in the most powerful Scirocco in the hatchback’s history; the third-gen Scirocco made anywhere from 120 to 220 horses in standard form, and 276 hp in R form. Design studies are said to hark to the precise, compact lines of the original from the 1970s (below), an aesthetic that an aero-favoring EV powertrain would get along with nicely.
