Tell me what constitues a new car. As in the parts that would need to be chenaged, as in new engine, new shape etc. Tell me exactly what the mk6 would need to be to be a new car from the mk5 in your own words.
Easy 90% of the parts being newly designed and built and not just the old parts in a new dress.
I's mostly down to the shell. For an all new car you throw away the old design, you start from scratch and you build it all up with new and improved parts.
New engines are moot point as they are revised in different cycles to the cars themselves as they're easier and cheaper to change in shorter cycles to meet legislation and economy improvements than changing the whole car. Certainly VW never gave the Edition 30 the status of "all new Golf" yet that had a new interior, new engine, new bumpers etc.
Mid life cycle face lifts and running gear improvement shave been around as long as the car insustry has existed. Sometime the makers denote them as a new MK and other times they don't. THe fact remains the MK6 is just an interim improvement to an already existing car before the launch of the all new MK7. Ford did it with the modeo, the fiesta (which went through 2 facelifts!). Rover did it with the metro (body shape changed in the early 90's and got K instead of A series engines and a new interior but the shell was still the same as was most of the runing gear). BMC did it with the mini for 45 years but the last 2001 minis were in effect little different to those built in 69 and yet the MK number had gone from I to VII. The first all new mini was the one sold by BMW.
nick
