The Volkswagen Lamando L is a stylish liftback sedan sold only in China. It rides on VW Group’s MBQ Evo architecture, but the platform has undergone significant changes to accommodate a much wider range of positions. The new Wheels Boy YouTube video gives a tour of the extended family car, which is nearly three meters (9.8 feet) wide if you include the side mirrors.
The project, dubbed the Lamando 5XL, started by cutting the center of the car and adding more sheet metal between the wheels. The widened car required new front and rear fascia, with engineers doing their best to retain the model’s standout styling features, such as a lower grille opening. The side profile is left unchanged, but the rear is as wide as the front, with plastic trim bridging the two taillight halves.
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This car has acrylic for the front and rear windows as well as a panoramic roof. Custom glass for cars will be very expensive. The trunk is functional, but also heavy, requiring four people to open it, revealing a large trunk capable of swallowing crossover payloads. Under the hood, the engine sits on one side of the bay, with a large strut extending above it. There’s enough room for Ethan, the host, to stand next to the car’s original 1.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine.
Inside, the Lamado L gets more seats and more screens. Everything on the driver’s side is stock, including the center console. There are two additional screens on the passenger side in front of the two-seat bench of the minivan. At the rear, the seating situation is more cohesive, with the new seats receiving the same red accent stitching as the original outboard seats.
The review ended with a baffling test drive, and he was told to keep the Volkswagen under 18 miles per hour (30 kilometers per hour). The car’s NVH didn’t improve, with the modified model making a lot of noise when navigating the race track carefully. Automakers like to increase cabin space, but they often extend vehicles, and we doubt that this kind of widening will be done by Lamando any time soon.
