Volkswagen Vento Now Fights Fire

Apprentices of the Volkswagen Academy India's three-year Dual Apprenticeship course, have built a firefighting car for the Volkswagen Pune plant's Safety Department. A group of 14 apprentices have submitted this as their final year project. The group of students was given a task to built a special model - a firefighting car which can be used for daily purposes within the facility by Fire and Safety Department.

Keeping the focus on manufacturing, apprentices decided to build a car on a low budget. "To keep the costs low, scrapped parts from various production departments of the Pune Plant were utilised in the project. The students got in-depth guidance from the Pilot Hall team members.", said the academy in a statement.

Students used parts and components from a Volkswagen Vento and a Cross Polo for the project car. The basic design of the project car was that of a Vento, several changes were done from B-pillar to the tailgate for creating a pick-up design. Powering this firefighting car is the same 1.6-litre TDI engine that is used in the Vento. The tailgate of the car was fabricated with its hinges at the bottom to allow easy loading and unloading of the items. The academy informs that about 160 parts of the car were designed specially for this project.

Mr. Vijayan KT, Responsible for Dual Apprenticeship Programme at Volkswagen Academy India, said "Through the Apprenticeship Programme, we intended to create a skilled force which could work in various areas of manufacturing immediately after finishing their course. The car-building project has successfully proven the intention behind our programme and has brought out high potential of the youth."

Pallavi Sabale, an apprentice said, "During the building of this firefighting car, we got hands on experience with activities like drilling, tapping, soldering, welding, riveting, painting and denting. We are extremely happy that we got an opportunity like this to prove our skills."