Volkswagen up!
Revised up! now comes with a punchier turbocharged engine – does it add a sporty edge?
MODEL TESTED: Volkswagen up! 1.0 TSI beats 3dr PRICE: £11,490 ENGINE: 1.0-litre 3cyl, 89bhp IN sporty three-door beats specification with Volkswagen’s 1.0 TSI 90 engine, the up! undercuts both of its rivals – and by quite some margin, costing £11,490. Even the five-door model costs less, at £11,890. However, does the less powerful up! make a convincing sporty city car, or is your money better invested in the Twingo?
DESIGN & ENGINEERING
THE up! is designed around the VW Group’s New Small Family (NSF) platform, and it’s used on sister cars such as the SEAT Mii and Skoda Citigo. After a facelift last year, the up! returned with a few minor styling tweaks both inside and out, but the big addition to the range was the German firm’s turbocharged 1.0-litre TSI three-cylinder engine.
Neither the updated SEAT or Skoda get this unit, which means despite putting out a little less power than the Renault and the Smart, these two are the Volkswagen’s main rivals.
Underneath the compact body, the NSF platform employs Macpherson struts at the front, but unlike the Renault uses a torsion beam rear axle. The layout is more conventional, with the engine in the front.
The up! is marginally longer than the Twingo at 3.6 metres, but it’s still a compact car. The frontengined layout means the wheels can’t turn through such a big angle as the Renault, so the 9.8-metre turning circle isn’t as useful, but the VW is still highly manoeuvrable and impressively agile.
It feels more upmarket and much better built than the competition, too. The dash plastics are higher quality, and while there is some painted metal inside, it’s a nice feature that brightens the interior – although the light upholstery and trim on the up! beats might not be to everyone’s taste.
This beats trim gets a decent level of kit, with a DAB radio and Bluetooth, VW ’s smartphone navigation interface with sat-nav through an app and an upgraded stereo all fitted as standard. However, manual air-conditioning is fitted, while climate control is a £260 option.
DRIVING
WEIGHING 1kg more than the Twingo and with only 89bhp and 160Nm of torque, it was no surprise that the up! was slower from 0-60mph, taking 10.0 seconds. However, there’s more to how this car delivers its performance than flat-out speed.
Its maximum power and torque are produced lower down in the rev range than the Renault, so it’s actually easier and more relaxing to drive. While the VW ’s in-gear times were still slower than its rivals, the 9.9-second sprint through the gears from 30-70mph highlights one of the car’s positives.
The five-speed manual has a more mechanical feel than the Renault, and is much nicer to use. The steering shares this precision, which makes the up! feel much sharper to drive.
Together with more grip, the agile chassis actually makes the car feel sportier and more enjoyable to drive than the Twingo, although it’s slower in a straight line. The up! rides with plenty of composure and control, and because it’s on smaller 15-inch alloy wheels, you don’t feel potholes through the structure quite as hard as you do in the rivals here.
It’s more absorbent on bad roads, floating over ridges and chunks in the tarmac and filtering out a large proportion of the surface where the Renault responds more violently to the same bumps.
PRACTICALITY
TO five-doorbut still matcheven much in up! the morethis that Twingo, three-doorroom only on there’scosts offer variant£400a inside. more, there’s
long The doors front and seats relativelyfold and large slide openings forward, make while it the easy to climb into the rear. Legroom is good, and thanks to that square roofline, headroom is also impressive; there’s space for two fully grown adults in the rear.
The 251-litre boot is also much more usable and features a glass hatch like the Twingo. You can set it up so there’s either no loading lip, or maximise space by putting the movable floor in its lowest position. Fold the seats and the resultant 959 litres gives plenty of space, although it’s 21 litres down on the Twingo. Long doors mean long door bins, so together with two cup-holders, a tray and a shelf in front of the gearlever plus good glovebox, it offers decent stowage.
OWNERSHIP
VolkswagenDESPITEin our Driverits status finishedPower as 2016 a low premium satisfactiondown the brand, survey, in 24th out of 32 makes. And its official dealer network finished at the other end of the table to Renault in 28th. Safety, however, is much better.
The up! scored a full five-star Euro NCAP rating, the only car here to do so. Four airbags are standard like the Renault, but the VW gets the option of a city emergency braking pack for £375, which, bizarrely, also includes automatic headlights.
RUNNING COSTS
DESPITE emitting 108g/km of CO2 compared to the Smart’s 102g/km, the cheaper Volkswagen will be more cost-effective to run for business users.
If you pay tax at the lower rate, the VW will cost £452 in company car contributions, while the Smart will set you back £623 even though it’s rated in the 19 per cent BIK category compared to 20 per cent for the up!. Despite sharing the same engine as the Fortwo, the heavier, manual Twingo GT emits more CO2 at 115g/km, so although it costs less, business users will have to pay £610 to the Treasury per year.