VW have finally built the van enthusiasts have been asking — and it’s not the ID.Buzz. Meet the new e-Transporter Sportline, the retro-tastic people-mover with GTI-inspired styling, a proper performance attitude, and room for seven that VW should have been building all along.
Volkswagen was on the right track when they decided to market the premium-priced ID.Buzz as a nostalgia play, they just targeted the wrong demographic. It’s not the aging Boomers, but the Gen-Xers and elder Millenials who are spending big money on vans these days — and, to us, VW isn’t about Beetles and Buses. It’s about high-strung GTis, Sciroccos, and Corrados. This Transporter Sportline? This is the way.
As far as the van itself goes, the e-Transporter van packs a 210 kW (~280 hp) electric motor with gobs of low-end torque for convincingly GTi-levels of straight-line acceleration. That motor is efficient enough, too, to take you and six friends nearly 200 miles on its relatively small 64 kWh battery, pairing real-world range with the kind of interior space VW enthusiasts have been begging for since the last of the EuroVans made its way off the dealer’s lot.
Crucially, however, those are the same specs the standard e-Transporter had when it launched in 2024. To help the Sportline stand out from the regular Transporter van, VW lowered the suspension, added some aggressively sculpted GTi-inspired bodywork with gloss-black and red accents, and upgraded the van to high-intensity LED lighting, for a lower, wider, more planted stance that leans hard into Volkswagen’s sporty car heritage. The finishing touch: a bespoke set of Volkswagen Sportline 19-inch alloy wheels, filling the subtly flared fenders in a properly intentional way … in fact, the only thing missing is plaid seat fabrics.
Pricing for the e-Transporter Sportline van sits between €70,000–€80,000 — about the same $75-90K price as the (to me) far less desirable ID.Buzz.
That’s just like, my opinion, though. Take a look at the photo gallery, below, and let us know if you’d rather drive home in a Boomer-friendly ID.Buzz, or something that offers a little more 90’s inspired fahrvergnügen in the comments.
e-Transporter Sportline gallery
SOURCE | IMAGES: VW, via AutoExpress UK.
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