A Black Knight stalks the ramparts of corporate castles, he carries a shield decorated with a wreath of beans, he swings a double-edged spreadsheet and he rides a terrifying black mare called The Bottom Line. His name is The Business Case and if a new report from Autocar is accurate, he’s done his foul work again, this time dealing another blow to the already-long-delayed Volkswagen Bluesport Roadster. Even though the engineering work for the two-seater convertible is reportedly finished, it appears no one can come up with a way to support the necessary sales projections of 50,000 units annually.

That is in part because Jonathan Browning, head of VW USA, apparently doesn’t see the point of expanding VW’s product portfolio with another model (a truly unexpected sentiment coming from Volkswagen as far as we’re concerned). The U.S. being the largest consumer of sports cars, our sitting this one out puts the 2009 Detroit Auto Show showcar in a tough spot.

Synergies being what they are, that also puts Bluesport’s brand brothers from Audi and Porsche in doubt. Audi plans for an R4 will apparently get iced in light of the news, but Porsche might have dodged a bullet: it wanted a four-cylinder 550-successor, but not one that would eat into Boxster sales, which this car almost certainly would. The Bluesport isn’t officially dead yet, but at three years in and counting, you can be sure there’s a hand on the life-support plug.

VW Bluesport Roadster might finally be dead before it lived originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Nissan Juke R might be one of the company’s most impressive engineering efforts in recent memory, but the skunkworks team behind it has apparently ruffled more than a few feathers with Nissan execs in Japan.

The UK team behind the Juke R apparently didn’t seek approval from Nissan’s higher-ups before beginning the build, and the unholy GT-R/Juke hybrid concept was apparently born in secret before the unending teasers – see the latest one after the jump – began making their way online.

According to sources close to the company, the release was a complete surprise to many at the automaker and several Nissan executives at the company’s headquarters were put-off by the idea that a group of rag-tag engineers in the UK would take their ultimate driving machine – the flagship for everything Nissan is capable of – and toss it into an inexpensive compact crossover.

But like you, we think it’s awesome, and we suspect when the execs get some seat time, they’ll begrudgingly agree.

Continue reading Juke R might be awesome, but Nissan HQ ain’t happy [w/video]

Juke R might be awesome, but Nissan HQ ain’t happy [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 08 Dec 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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