VW Brazil Built A Bizarre Open-Top Saloon For The President To Use Once

Based on the Virtus saloon, this cabriolet was built specially to transport the president during a factory visit

08 Feb 2024

The South American car market is like a strange parallel universe. There are lots of brands we’re familiar with, but their model ranges are often very different to what we get in Europe. Take Volskwagen’s Brazilian range: there’s a Polo and a Tiguan Allspace, but no Golf or ID.3. Instead there are things like the Taos crossover, Saveiro pickup and the Virtus saloon. It’s this last one we’re interested in.

When Volkswagen of Brazil found out that the nation’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, would be visiting its factory on the outskirts of São Paulo, it decided to build something special for the occasion. It was once a common sight to see heads of state paraded in front of crowds in the back of four-seater convertibles, and VW decided to revive that tradition on a slightly more down-to-earth level.

To that end, it took its Virtus - which is basically a saloon version of the Polo - and got the angle grinders out. Over six weeks, 30 engineers created a stretched, roofless Virtus in which Lula da Silva could be transported during his visit.

The car doesn’t seem to be a true convertible with a roof that can be raised or lowered. Instead, it’s simply a Virtus saloon that’s had its roof and pillars lopped off. It’s also been stretched slightly to a length more befitting a president, and the body has been reinforced because doing all that to a normal saloon car would otherwise make it floppier than a basset hound’s ears. Finally, there’s a grab bar installed behind the front seats to allow Lula da Silva to stand up and wave in a presidential manner.

The Brazilian president tours a VW factory in an open-top Virtus

Significant bodywork changes notwithstanding, it’s a standard range-topping Virtus, which means a 1.4-litre turbocharged four-cylinder, making 148bhp and driving the front wheels through a six-speed automatic.

Having transported Lula da Silva around the plant’s huge facilities during his visit, it will now go on display in a museum within the factory, its purpose served as one of the most humble modes of state transport we’ve seen.

The first full sentence spoken by an infant Mike was a review of the ride quality of a Volvo 850. It was “Daddy’s car goes bumpy-bump on a bumpy road,” so would probably need proofreading a bit, but it was a start.