CVV's Daily Dose of Dub - TRUCK WEEK

"crown victor victoria" (cvv) 08/07/2013 at 13:00 • Filed to: DDoD

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For today's Dose, we'll cover the Saviero, which is a Brazil-market latter-day old school Caddy, if that makes any sense.

The Sav is actually a variant of the Gol platform, which is a subcompact manufactured by Volkswagen do Brasil and serves as VW's entry-level car in that and other markets (and is sometimes called the Pointer). North Americans know/knew the Gol as the Fox, which sold here from the late 80s through early 90s. The Saviero (apparently a type of fishing boat in Brazil) has always been an available Gol variant since introduction in 1983, so there's a long history of these little guys. Being subcompact class, you're looking at small displacement, low output 4 cylinder engines.

There have been 3 actual generations of the Gol/Saviero, with G2 and G3 versions both available today. G2, originally introduced in 1994, is still sold in Egypt and Iran.

There have been a number of looks for these, and not all of them have been good, with what I guess would be the MKIV-ish version serving as the absolute low point. The styling loosely follows the typical Golf generations and some Passat looks that the NA market knows well, so it shouldn't be too hard to pick them out. Still, here's the range in chronological order. I think the ugly duckling is pretty easy to spot regardless.

Above is the "Scout" trim, which is actually the most expensive with 15" black steel wheels and a number of chunky off road tack-ons. I think this looks marginally better than the Saviero Cross from the lede image, just because it might actually get driven in the dirt. Still FWD though. Of course there's a bunch of daydream threads over on VWVortex about importing one and putting 4MOTION and a VR6 in.

And if you're so inclined, here's some kind of promotional video of the little guy tooling around, accompanied by some rockin music and the soothing sounds of spoken Portuguese

Hermann > crown victor victoria 08/07/2013 at 13:18

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- The Saveiro Trooper (or Scout, as you said) is actually the second most expensive. The Saveiro Cross is still the top model.

- Also, it's an excellent little car, this current generation. My father had a G3 Saveiro with the 100hp 1.8l engine, but since it weighed only 950kg it was very quick and fun to drive. And although I'm not a VW fan (especially not a fan of that engine, many other Brazilians can tell you why) I loved that car. It was very, very fun to drive, especially on light dirt or gravel. The rear was always very light so it tended to go sideways even being FWD. Fun little thing. It was the first car in which I passed the 120mph mark.

- When I worked at VW, they had a Saveiro that belonged to someone at the engineering department. Some said it was a canceled prototype, that's why it existed. They said it had the MKIV Golf GTI powertrain. It was a white Saveiro Cross with the "Biturbo" VW Golf Wheels and didn't have the black wheel arches. It was gorgeous.

- And don't forget the Saveiro Rocket concept. I personally thing it's hideous, but it did get some attention.

PelicanHazard > crown victor victoria 08/07/2013 at 13:19

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Does everything in that Brazilian segment have plastic cladding?

Hermann > PelicanHazard 08/07/2013 at 13:21

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Nope:

crown victor victoria > Hermann 08/07/2013 at 13:26

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Yeah we had talked about the Saviero before, last time I posted it in DDoD (i think that theme was "Exchange Students" or something. I'd search for it, but it was pre-kinja so it won't show up).

I think I was working off of old information for the pricing structure, because the Cross was new this generation, wasn't it?

I saw the Rocket. It's not bad, but people have been modifying these in all sorts of ways because it's so affordable, so it didn't look like anything I hadn't seen before.

Hermann > crown victor victoria 08/07/2013 at 13:39

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Yeah, I remember about that. I thought we had talked about the Fox.

The Gol G5 Saveiro was launched in late 2009, I think. And the Cross was launched not much after I got into VW, so it was about May 2010. The Gol G6-based saveiro had all versions right away, AFAIK.

Saveiro modding is very popular, especially because it's very light with a roomy bed and because the whole Gol family has an absurd aftermarket. But they aren't really affordable, at least if you want anything on it.

To give an idea, we sold my dad's 2001 saveiro and got a 2007 Fiat Strada for 10% more (this was in 2009). And the Saveiro didn't have power steering or AC, the strada did. Car prices are all too high over here. A Base saveiro goes from just under $15,000 US. But if you want the top model, you can add $10,000 to that sum, and there's not really that much stuff added to the car to justify all this.