The announcement was made during a visit paid to the plant by David McAllister, Lower Saxony’s Minister President and a member of the Volkswagen supervisory board. For those who aren't familiar with the Volkswagen Osnabruc, the site belonged by earlier this year to the now defunct Karmann.
“Over the decades, some of the most beautiful models in the automobile world have left the assembly line in Osnabrück. We will be carrying on this tradition from 2011 with the new Golf Cabrio,” said Martin Winterkorn, Volkswagen chairman of the board.
“The capacities and specialist skills available here are very valuable for our Group. We will be creating a total of 1,800 jobs at Volkswagen Osnabrück by the end of 2011. Osnabruck will therefore remain a high-performance automobile location in our Group alliance going forward."
The details which will make up the Golf Cabrio have not been released yet, but they are not that hard to guess. Being just a body-version derivative, the cabrio will likely get the same engines as the hatch, with possibly minor additions to the lineup.
The production of the model will begin at the site in the spring of next year, with the first models expected to hit the market a few months after that.
“Many people dreamt of the Beetle Cabrio, the Karmann Ghia or the Scirocco,” added David McAllister. “It is wonderful to see this tradition being continued now and to know that automobile production in Osnabrück has a future. The new Golf Cabrio will be a great car. The extensive expertise in cabriolet construction that is available here is being harnessed.”
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