The Volkswagen Up! is dead

09th October 2023

Ethan Jupp

The death of the small affordable car continues apace, with the latest casualty being the Volkswagen Up!. Volkswagen’s long-serving entry-level model, first introduced in 2011, has been discontinued without a successor, with Volkswagen’s UK website having had the model’s availability defined as ‘stock only’ for some time leading up to this point.

Autocar first broke the story, detailing that the Slovakian factory that produced the three Up! siblings – the Up!, the Seat Mii and the Skoda Citigo – has already built the final example. The Skoda and the Seat had all been discontinued ahead of the Up! in 2021 and 2020 respectively.

The Up! has led a curious existence for the last couple of years, with the model’s availability being patchy at best, with Volkswagen pointing to supply issues. On top of this, the hot 115PS (85kW) GTI, which debuted with a fanfare in 2018 – went off sale for good nine months ago, so the model’s discontinuation overall has, it’s fair to say, come as a surprise to no one. For now, the Polo has re-taken its place as the smallest Volkswagen on sale, a title it hasn’t held since the introduction of the Lupo in 1998.

Will the tiny sub-Polo VW ever return?

Volkswagen has been very open about its ambitions to introduce ever-cheaper and ever-smaller electric cars to its line-up. The ID.2all is due to arrive in 2025 as a sub-€25,000 Polo-sized electric car, with plans to introduce an Up!-like ID.1 at under €20,000 soon afterwards.

We won’t have to wait too long for an all-electric tiny car from Volkswagen but as is the case with almost all EVs, it’ll be far from the attainable entry point price-wise that the Up! once was. With the piece of the entry-level Up! ballooning over the years, perhaps it hadn’t been for some time either.

Very few city cars remain

Nevertheless the loss of the Up! today is the loss of buyers at the bottom rung of the new car ladder, who have lost out on yet another cheap and cheerful option, that was still a great little car even after over a decade on sale. As of now, the Hyundai i10 and Kia Picanto twins are almost alone in being new tiny cars you can buy now, as we know and love them.

Tinier four-wheelers do exist, in the Citroen Ami, but with such a tiny range figure to play with, what is technically a quadricycle in the UK is way down in terms of usability and versatility compared to the likes of traditional city cars.

Of course, the Aygo is a familiar name that remains, albeit one that has morphed into a somewhat larger small crossover. The Suzuki Swift lives on, which is a somewhat larger option than the Up!, and the Kia-Hyundai twins remain. Then, of course, you get into the larger hatch segment with the VW Polo, Renault Clio, Peugeot 208, Skoda Fabia and Vauxhall Corsa. That segment has itself lost a long-serving totem of late, with the retirement of the Fiesta from Ford’s line-up.