OT:Is there a flat four in VW's future?, Article projects RWD, mid-engine Beetle Options

[KELTY360]

While searching for info on the new New Beetle I bumped into this article. May be old news to some, but I hadn't seen it before. Here's an excerpt:

"Things get more interesting when we look further out, to the third-generation car due around 2017. That version could see the Bug return to its boxer-engine roots, given some cooperation from Porsche. Porsche has proposed a new horizontally opposed four-cylinder engine for use in its upcoming entry-level model and as a base engine in the Boxster/Cayman. Four years ago, when VW chief Martin Winterkorn approached Porsche's then-CEO Wendelin Wiedeking seeking to use that boxer engine for a sporty variant of the New Beetle, Wiedeking refused. Just recently, though, Winterkorn again went to Zuffenhausen, obviously in a much stronger position now that the VW Group controls Porsche. If Winterkorn gets the small boxer engine this time, it would become the mainstay powerplant for the third-generation car, which would switch to a rear-wheel-drive, mid-engine layout. How's that for a metamorphosis?"

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Not hard to see a redux914 in this configuration. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/idea.gif) Just think, a whole new generation of donor cars!