The Rise and Fall of the Volkswagen “Boxcat” Project (2010–2019)

An alternative-history chronicle

When the new decade dawned in 2010, Volkswagen secretly launched one of its most unusual military initiatives since the Cold War. Under internal project name Boxcat, engineers were tasked with creating a lightweight, multi-role ATV for European rapid-response forces, built not on a military chassis, but on the civilian VW Tiguan platform.

The idea came from a belief within parts of the German MoD that future conflicts would be fought by fast-moving, lightly armored units supported by advanced situational-awareness systems. Volkswagen, eager to expand into the defense sector, agreed.

2010–2014: Development of a “Combat Tiguan”

The Boxcat prototypes surprised even skeptics. The vehicle, lightly armored and configured for a crew of four, received an advanced communications suite, encrypted datalinks, and the remarkable addition of 11-inch tactical monitors for every crew member.

A 7.62 mm remote-mount weapon station was designed for self-defense.

Inside VW headquarters, the engineers quietly added a feature no Bundeswehr officer had asked for:
a high-end, car-theatre entertainment system, fully integrated into the tactical screens.
Reports later stated this was installed partly out of habit: “Volkswagen knows infotainment better than warfare.”

2015: The Tests Begin… and End

Trials officially began in early 2015. Powered by the EA-189 diesel engine, the Boxcat impressed test drivers with its acceleration, reliability, and ability to navigate urban rubble.

Then September 2015 happened.

The revelation that EA-189 engines were equipped with manipulated NOx-emission software, the Dieselgate scandal, hit the Boxcat program like an artillery strike. Suddenly, the core engine of the new military ATV was politically and legally toxic.

By October, the Bundeswehr leadership ordered an immediate freeze on testing.

A spokesman’s infamous statement at the Berlin press conference became a running joke in NATO circles:

“If we allow a vehicle that violates environmental standards, what would be next?
Deploying armor whose TÜV approval has expired?
German bureaucracy does not wage war without proper paperwork!”

The Boxcat was unofficially dead.

2016–2018: The Forgotten Prototype

After 2016, the Boxcat quietly disappeared from public view.
Foreign militaries, watching the unfolding legal storm around Volkswagen, also withdrew interest.

One of the few prototypes was seen briefly in 2017 at a closed-door NATO exhibition in Norway, its monitor screens still configured to play MP3 files.

But the program remained shelved, a victim not of poor performance, but of emissions law.

2019: Rumors of Revival

By early 2019, whispers began circulating inside Wolfsburg.
VW’s new electric platform, the ID.3 MEB, had sparked an idea:

What if the Boxcat returned, not as a diesel ATV, but as Europe’s first military BEV?

According to internal memos leaked that summer, engineers proposed a silent-running, fully electric reconnaissance vehicle with long-range battery packs and zero emissions—finally immune to the bureaucracy that had strangled the original.

Whether this revived Boxcat will ever reach the battlefield remains unknown.
But in military-history circles, the project has become a symbol of a uniquely German truth:

Sometimes a weapons program doesn’t die because of cost or combat inefficiency - but because it fails its emissions test.