The VW GX3 Could Have Been A Morgan 3 Wheeler From The Future

Three-wheeled sports cars are not something that appear very often. That’s partly because they exist in an administrative grey area between car and motorbike, partly because four wheels are generally better than three from a handling point of view, and partly because you can’t say ‘three-wheeled car’ without picturing the inexplicably long-lived nonsense that was the Reliant Robin.

It’s only really the Morgan 3 Wheeler and later Super 3, plus the Polaris Slingshot, that have employed the concept to any kind of success in recent years, but that could have been very different back in 2006 had Volkswagen decided to take things in a different direction.

At that year’s Los Angeles Auto Show, the company unveiled the GX3, a futuristic-looking three-wheeled roadster designed with the US market in mind. VW called it a motorcycle but… come on.

The single wheel was out the back, where it makes the most sense to put it on a trike with sporting ambitions. It was driven via a chain drive and a six-speed manual by the 1.6-litre naturally aspirated four-pot from the Lupo GTI. This made a modest 123bhp and 112lb ft, but with just 570kg to punt along, the GX3 was said to be capable of hitting 62mph in 5.7 seconds, and a top speed of 125mph.

Designed as a collaborative effort between VW’s California design team and a team of engineers, designers and marketers that the company rather grandly called ‘Moonraker’, it had a big smiley grille and odd-sized headlights that made it look like a loveable robot from a Pixar film. It was all built around a high-density steel spaceframe chassis, and clothed in fibreglass bodywork.

VW, it seemed, was pretty keen on putting it into production, saying it could cost as little as $17,000 – around $27,000, or £20,250, in today’s money. The company said at the time it would depend on the feedback it received from the US audience it was targeting. It must have been pretty positive, because a couple of months later, a prototype was spied testing in an unexpected place: Lotus’ test track.

The British company was apparently heavily involved in engineering the car, with the steering, suspension and even the chassis all supposedly coming from an Elise. Lotus was even set to build the GX3 in Norfolk.

In the end, though, the project petered out later in 2006. The reason, according to MotorTrend, was one intrinsically tied to the American market the car was aimed at: fear of lawsuits. Even with VW taking every precaution to make it fully regulation-compliant and as safe as possible, the company’s product liability people were apparently too jumpy about the prospect of selling a three-wheeled car with no roof or windscreen.

This is a real shame. Anyone that’s driven one of Morgan’s trikes knows what endless smile-generation machines they are, and with its extra shove, fancier suspension and proper tyres, the GX3 could have teamed this with some proper dynamic ability.

Oh well, time to file it in the drawer marked ‘promising Volkswagen sports car concepts that never made production’. Along with the W12. And the Concept R. And the EcoRacer. And the Bluesport. And the XL Sport. And…