The new Sagitar Photo: Liang Fei/GT

German automaker Volkswagen, which tops the sedan sales list in China so far this year, showcased over 30 models at the Guangzhou auto show, including a brand-new midsize coupe, the Lamando.

The Lamando sports sedan, which debuted at the Chengdu auto show in August, is set to hit the market in January 2015, the company said. Pre-orders of the model started at the auto show, but price of the model is not announced yet.

The model, available only in China so far, uses Volkswagen's modular MQB platform that is also shared by the Golf 7 and Skoda's Octavia. The Lamando is the first MQB platform model produced by Shanghai Volkswagen, one of the German automaker's joint ventures in China.

Shanghai Volkswagen has attached high hopes that this new car will boost the brand's sales. Though the Lamando is still not officially available on the market yet, the company has already launched intensive promotion campaigns for it - it is the main sponsor of the Chinese version of South Korean reality show Running Man, which was launched on air on October 10 and has become a hit in China.

"The new Lamando should be a competitive new product, as the Volkswagen brand is well-received among Chinese consumers," said Wu Shuocheng, a senior analyst at industry consultancy Menutor Consulting Shanghai Co.

The FAW-Volkswagen, another joint venture of the automaker in China, also brought something new to the Guangzhou show - an updated version of one of the company's bestsellers, the Sagitar sedan model.

Compared with older versions, the new version has a more fashionable exterior with newly designed LED head and rear lights.

The Sagitar has actually been hit by negative publicity in China recently. On October 15, FAW-Volkswagen announced it would recall 563,605 Sagitar cars produced between May 2011 and May 2014, to ease consumers' concerns about the safety of the models' suspension arms on the rear axles.

The company offered to wrap a sheath around the rear suspension bar, but some owners were not satisfied with the solution and launched small-scale protests during the past few weeks.

The recalled Sagitars are equipped with non-independent rear suspension, but some owners wanted independent rear suspension, which has been used on models produced both before and after the recalled batch.