VW did not dare to build these versions of the Volkswagen Corrado

If Volkswagen were to launch a Corrado today, it would of course be an SUV, followed a few months later by a Corrado R with 360 hp, a Coupé (also five-door, but slightly flatter at the back), an Allspace with a longer wheelbase and a convertible. All SUVs. Naturally, the technically identical derivatives of Audi, Skoda and Seat would appear afterwards.

Three Volkswagen Corrado that didn’t come, in the front the SGS Cabrio, next to it the Karmann Roadster, then the standard Corrado and at the back the Magnum, a shooting brake.

Karmann presents Corrado Cabrio: Karmann Roadster

When Volkswagen introduced the real Corrado in 1988, it was a three-door coupé. Period. No convertible, no station wagon, no Audi, no Seat. That’s what happens when you only have a choice of milk or sugar in the coffee and the frappuchino is still an unknown quantity. It is no surprise that some of Germany’s remaining coachbuilders have come up with variants of the Corrado. First of all, that is Wilhelm Karmann GmbH from Osnabrück. That is obvious, because firstly, that company builds the production model on behalf of Volkswagen, secondly, the design and construction of convertibles has always been Karmann’s core business.

The Volkswagen Corrado as an open version as Karmann would have liked to have built it. A two-seater.

MAG, SGS and Transmitter

Then there’s MAG, the company of ex-Karmann engineer Josef A. Marold, and SGS – the Styling Garage – led by Chris Hahn. There is also Zender, the tuner that is experimenting with making convertibles stiffer with plastics instead of metal. The only Zender Corrado that ever saw the light of day has disappeared from view, but both study models of the Karmann Roadster still exist, as do both copies of the SGS Cabrio. As for the Magnum station wagon, we are lucky: two examples were built and they both had an American owner. One car has returned to Germany, so that we can still bring together all four body styles for this report. A first.

The SGS Convertible, room for four people.

SGS Cabrio too high on the legs

Let’s start with the SGS Convertible. At the time of the photo session, this car has not yet been fully restored; it is too high on the legs at the rear and the original soft top did not have a light, but a dark color, says Chris Hahn. “In my case, the rear side windows went into the body within three centimeters,” he says. He is proud of its design and details such as the ‘power top’ with its electro-hydraulic controls. You set the roof in motion with a button on the right behind the steering wheel. To close it you have to lock it with a metal handle (from Mercedes-Benz!) to the windscreen frame. Chris is equally proud of the burl wood veneer, which has been softened with a thinner and pulled over the plastic surfaces under vacuum. The trickiest part is the reinforcements in the bodywork. “We designed a complete frame for it.” Specialist Happich supplied the Sonnenland fabric, as well as the steering wheel with fourteen control buttons. Dirk Amthor of the Berlin VW dealer Auto Eicke made the project possible at the time and even wanted to build a small series. Hahn: “He bought the idea and the tools from me and paid a lot for it.”

SGS also went wild on the interior.

Five months after Corrado’s introduction

In 1989, five months after the presentation of the Corrado, Hahn debuted the car at the Geneva Motor Show. Production should start in July of that year, the press release promises: “For production, the Eicke company has taken over some employees of the bankrupt specialist Treser from Berlin. The intention is to build ten cars per month initially.”

SGS took the Volkswagen Corrado G60 as a basis.

End of story by plans Volkswagen and Karmann

During the fair, Volkswagen employees take a seat in the car, says Dirk Amthor, who is now 80 years old. “They said ‘give it to us and we’ll look at it at the factory’, but I needed to know what the outlook was.” Production in Berlin would have been too expensive; Amthor finds partners in Hungary who want to build the small series. At that time, however, Volkswagen announced that it would build its own Corrado Cabrio. They also indicate at Karmann that they have plans to do so. Amthor: “That was the end of the story. I have stopped the project. You are powerless against such parties. I invested half a million in the project, so I was pretty sick of it.”

SGS Cabrio is four-seater, Karmann Roadster is two-seater

Two convertibles actually see the light of day, and there is an extra body, say Hahn and Amthor. Karmann’s design is a two-seater. The development order comes from Volkswagen, the AutoMuseum Volkswagen reports. The second study model was created in the internal design department of Volkswagen. The history of the two roadsters has not been fully investigated, because the Karmann archive is stored in boxes in the archives of the Volkswagen group, which has not yet been able to sort through and sort everything due to a lack of staff and space. In the roadster we pull a lever behind the left B-pillar, after which the lid above the roof pops open. You have to fold the roof by hand; according to Chris Hahn electrical closing is not possible.

Karmann Roadster has leather on the dashboard

In the roadster, the dashboard is extensively covered with beautifully stitched dark blue leather. The door panels including door pockets are partly in blue, partly in light grey, or as two-tone as a latte macchiato. You can expect such colors in study models.

The Karmann Roadster has a lower butt than the SGS Cabriolet.

Not the G60 but the 16V served as the basis for the Karmann project.

Less colorful inside than the SGS, but very luxurious for Volkswagen standards. this concept.

Regular Corrado duller

Things are a lot more boring in the regular Corrado, as it turns out when we take a seat in the red coupé. On closer inspection, there is still a bit of color inside, thanks to the upholstery that is reminiscent of the dark blue and dark green checked trousers that were fashionable on golf courses at the time. The soft-touch plastic surfaces of the dashboard resemble leather.

Compared to the roofless show cars, the interior of the series Corrado above all exudes business efficiency. That does not alter the fact that the model has a few nice magic tricks to offer. The rear spoiler automatically extends and retracts, following the example of the Lancia Thema 8.32. According to Volkswagen, this reduces lift on the rear axle by up to 64 percent. A real delicacy in the engine range is the version with the exotic G-charger, the G60. The icing on the cake is the VR6 with a capacity of 2.9 liters and an output of 190 hp.

Collector has one of two Magnums

We have arranged a G60 for this item. The copy dates from 1991. It belongs to Autostadt in Wolfsburg, which also provides a photo studio for this exceptional four-way encounter. Volkswagen Classic delivers the best example of the two Karmann roadsters from Osnabrück and Chris Hahn travels from Hamburg with his SGS Cabrio on the trailer. Gunther Mertens from Hünfeld, Germany, provides the fourth car: he dared to drive on public roads with his MAG Magnum, one of only two examples. The car went under the hammer in the US in 2016. Corrado collector Mertens then made an offer without having seen the car first. And with success, because he wins the auction. “The other one has leather and burl walnut, which is not my thing.”

Idea for Magnum from former Karmann engineer

The idea for the Magnum comes from Josef A. Marold, a former Karmann engineer and now head of PGA Advanced Technologies AG and MAG Marold Automobil- und Anlagentechnik GmbH. At the time, he commissioned an old acquaintance to build the car: Chris Hahn. Marold mills the wooden molds for the C-pillars using CAD technology and Hahn’s coachbuilders then clamp the sheet metal to shape.

VW Passat roof panel, Audi 80 rear lights

The roof panel comes from the Volkswagen Passat, the tailgate hinges from the Polo and the rear lights from the Audi 80 B3. “We have always used parts that were on hand,” says Hahn. From the reinforced B-pillars to the steep C-pillars, the bodywork is completely new. It is not a pure show car, but a practical sports car with a low lift threshold and a split folding rear seat backrest

In 1990, the TÜV Nord branch in Lüneburg tested the construction using a prototype. The inspection body describes the slightly reduced torsional rigidity as ‘not objectionable’. The employees of the German test organization write in their final report of March 12: “We carried out comparative driving tests with the Sport-Kombi from Magnum and with a standard version, both on bad roads and on the highway. The SportKombi does not reveal any negative qualities.” That’s a compliment! Chris Hahn presents the Magnum at the Automechanika trade fair. It gives a Cd value of 0.308 and promises a maximum luggage space of 490 liters. “A special series of 100 copies is planned,” he proudly announced. However, it would never come to that, because there are too few buyers for the exclusive model. Too bad, because a ‘Corrado Variant’ would have fit perfectly next to the Passat Variant in the Volkswagen showroom.