Volkswagen Golf

Self-confessed VW fan Andrew Walker finds everything he’d ever want from the new Golf – and more besides

Our Medium Car of the Year is a runaway success

Lockdown 1 meant that CC&V didn’t get a chance to drive Volkswagen’s eighth generation Golf until September. As a once proud owner of a Golf Mk2 GTI in Mars Red, and with my wife’s current VW T-Roc and the children’s VW Polo on our drive, it’s safe to say that we are generally a pro-Volkswagen family, and so, when it turned up in the autumn I was really looking forward to driving it.

While VW is still offering fleet customers a diesel version of the Golf, we decided to test one of the petrol models.

Our test car was a Golf Life 1.5 TSI 130 PS 6-speed manual, which comes with a BIK of 27 per cent. Climb aboard and the first thing you’ll notice is the up-market cabin. Having driven the latest SKODA Octavia just two weeks before, it was clear to see that the VW is finished to a higher quality than its company cousin. The dashboard feels solid in a mixture of soft touch black and silver plastic, with even the glove box and door pockets, two places where it’s traditional to cut corners, feeling top notch.

The seats are comfortable and supportive and up front, passengers get decent head and legroom. There are two USBs in the front and two in the rear, but you’ll need adaptors as they are C-connection versions.

Much has been talked about the new controls and the infotainment within the car, but

I found it relatively straightforward to use.

Perhaps a week spent in the Octavia had helped, because the lack of any buttons could be a little daunting.

To be fair to VW, there are some buttons. On the right of the steering wheel you’ll find the lights and in the centre dash, located between two air-vents, are short-cut buttons labelled ASSIST, CLIMA and MENU. This allows you to select CLIMA and access the climate control functions on the touchscreen while you are on the move, and they are easily adjusted. Furthermore, there are slim temperature controls neatly located under the touchscreen, so you can bypass the screen altogether, a sensible inclusion.

The landscape screen is where you’ll learn to access most of the vehicle’s functions. Here you can get into the SatNav, DAB radio, Bluetooth and connected Apps. It doesn’t take long to get the hang of these either. Apple CarPlay connection was seamless and handsfree phone calls straightforward. On the steering wheel there are switches and buttons including the adaptive cruise control and those for accessing the 10.25” Active Info Display, where you can check on your mileage, speed, fuel economy and car functions.

Our week in the Golf included a 200-mile round trip to Coventry, where it performed admirably on the motorway, with the car returning an average of 61.1mpg at motorway speeds. It’s a quiet, comfortable cabin to be in, well insulated against road and wind noise.

Utilising the cruise control takes the hassle out of long journeys and the cabin features some good storage for drinks, keys, iPhone, sunglasses and the like. The 1.5 litre engine provides decent overtaking power, with 62mph reached in 9.2 seconds and a top speed of 133 mph.

For the remainder of the week we drove the Golf locally on urban roads and that happy feeling it gave off on the motorway continued. The six-speed gearbox is smooth and the shortish change means that you can happily drive in fifth gear at 30mph. The engine StopStart was also very good.

Slower, town driving did affect our fuel economy, as we saw it drop to 50.7mpg. Volkswagen claims a high MPG of 61.5 and a combined figure of 52.6, so it would seem that our figures pretty much matched the claimed, which is always good.

With CO2 emissions of 122g/km further adding to the appeal, I think I may, just as EVs take over, have finally been won over by a petrol Golf! Better late than never.

CC&V VERDICT

New Golf adds premium touches in the cabin, has a class-leading info package and delivers mpg in the 50-60 bracket: tell me honestly, what’s not to love? As close as you’ll get in this sector to perfection. If it was a golf course, it’d be toss up between Augusta and St Andrews