VW’S runabout cute, refined, roomy
NICE, France — The up! is a funky urban runabout that’s just hitting Volkswagen dealerships in Europe. At its launch, it will be offered as a three-door hatchback; however, a five-door derivative is to be shown at the Geneva Motor Show in March. It is part utility vehicle and part passenger car, but it is all about function and choice — there’s Take up!, Move up! and, of course, the loaded High up!, along with the up! Black and the up! White, the car tested.
At just more than 3.5 metres long, it qualifies as a compact, but there’s a surprising amount of room — enough that a cowboy can keep his 10-gallon hat on without making friends with the headliner. True, there’s not much rear-seat leg space if the front seats are fully rearward, and getting back there does require agility, but for a family of four or five, it works very nicely.
The utility side is found in the car’s cargo-carrying capacity. With the 60/40-split/folding-rear seat upright, it makes light work of 8.7 cubic feet of stuff, and it includes a hard privacy cover, which keeps prying eyes off any valuables stored back there.
Up front, the function continues. The cabin itself is very nicely finished. Yes, there is a lot of hard plastic, but it is nicely textured and it is butted together with the sort of precision one expects of a more expensive ride.
When it comes to the engine, the up! features a diminutive 1.0-litre three-cylinder motor that puts forth 75 horsepower and 70 poundfeet of torque. As they appear on paper, the numbers seem awfully underwhelming. A stopwatch backs that impression up! — zeroto-100-kilometres-an-hour runs take 13.2 seconds, which is verging on calendar-like. The up!-side, however, is that it feels so much more responsive and peppy. In fact, the only time the up! felt as though it could do with more motivation was when climbing some of the steeper hills north of here.
If there is a knock, it is the same as all engines with an odd number of cylinders — the engine note, especially as the tachometer sweeps toward redline, is rather coarse and grumbly. At first, it really did bother me. However, time behind the wheel saw the aggravation factor fade into the background. That stated, if the up! is going to make the trip across the Pond, it should arrive with a four-banger. It would add a little more top-end performance and eliminate the engine’s plaintive tone.
What the up! has going for it is a cute look, surprising utility and a great deal of refinement, all of which would seem to make it a nobrainer for Canada. Sadly, the up! is not likely to land here in the foreseeable future. It all has to do with price and the fact it is built in Europe.
Ideally, for the up! to succeed here it needs to start at a loonie under $14,000. That, as it stands, is a tall order. However, an optimist might point to the fact that Fiat is managing to push 500s out the door for silly money. I would take an up! over a 500 any day.