The Volkswagen Saveiro bakkie would have been perfect for SA - so why didn't it come here?
The Volkswagen Saveiro was considered for the local market, but never made it here.
Image: Supplied
“Volkswagen South Africa is really showing us the middle finger with this one,” exclaimed a recent post about the Volkswagen Saveiro on a popular social media group. This is one of many similar posts over the years, showing that South Africans really can’t get over the fact that VWSA has never introduced this Brazilian half-tonne bakkie to South Africa.
There was once a time when South Africans were spoiled for choice when it came to compact, half-tonne bakkies. From the Ford Bantam to the Fiat Strada, the Opel Corsa Utility that eventually morphed into the Chevrolet Utility and Nissan’s long-serving NP200 that effectively killed off the segment when it was discontinued as the last half-tonner standing in 2024.
Volkswagen SA also sold the Caddy, based on the MK1 Golf, until the early 2000s, but it has never fielded a modern contender in the half-tonne space, causing many fans and potential customers to question why the Saveiro never came here. After all, it really would have been an obvious fit for our market.
What is the Saveiro?
The Saveiro is a unibody bakkie based on the now-discontinued Volkswagen Gol hatchback. Both products were designed and developed for South America. The third-generation Saveiro, although still on sale in its home market, is long in the tooth, having been introduced way back in 2009.
Many South Africans, protesting about its absence on the local scene, refer to it as a “Polo-based” bakkie, which would, in theory, make it easy to introduce here. That is simply not true in the stricter sense, although given how closely the facelifted version resembles the fifth-gen Polo (currently Vivo in SA), that was an understandable assumption to make.
The Saveiro was available in single cab and extended cab (pictured) variations.
Image: Supplied
Saveiro single cab.
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Saveiro interior.
Image: Supplied
Technically, though, the third-gen Gol and Saveiro are built on Volkswagen’s PQ24 platform that also underpinned the fourth-generation Polo, but they don’t appear to be closely related, given that the two hatchbacks have different dimensions and distinct interior designs.
In Brazil, the Saveiro is fitted with a 1.6-litre normally aspirated petrol engine, delivering 77kW.
Why didn't the Saveiro come to South Africa?
While on the surface it might have seemed a good fit for the local market, the sums simply didn’t add up for the South African division.
The biggest stumbling block was the fact that the Saveiro has never been offered in right-hand drive format.
In a 2023 interview with Cars.co.za, VWSA managing director Martina Biene said the company had done “multiple calculations” on the feasibility of converting it to right-hand drive for the local market, but she said it would have been prohibitively expensive.
Would it have been impossible? No. General Motors did it with the Chevrolet Utility (although the hatchback version, called the Agile, was also initially in the planning for the local market). Back in the 1990s, Samcor literally grafted the front end of the Mazda 323 to the rear end of the Escort-based MK1 Ford Bantam to produce a second-generation bakkie. But we live in a different time. One where our market is inundated by cheap imports from India and China, and where low-volume products are not as feasible as they once were.
But that's not to say that we won't ever see a VW half-tonner.
Will VWSA introduce the Saveiro's replacement?
In the same interview with Cars.co.za, Biene did hint that VWSA’s upcoming SUV product (subsequently revealed as the Tengo) could present an opportunity for a bakkie.
However, the latest intel from Brazil suggests that the firm's next-generation half-tonne bakkie won't be based on the Tengo (which is known as the Tera in its home market).
The South African built VW Tengo will be closely based on the Brazilian-developed Tera.
Image: Supplied
Motor1 reports that Volkswagen has again given the green light to a production version of the Tarok concept of 2018, which was meant to preview a Saveiro replacement, albeit one that takes the form of a larger double cab. However, according to the publication, the production model will be based on the Taos SUV, which is larger than the Tera.
That certainly doesn’t mean the company isn’t working on a different single-cab compact bakkie based on the Tera, which would replace the Saveiro more directly.
IOL Motoring