FROM INSIDE THE WOMB

The Golf 1.4 TSI DSG R-Line feels warm and safe within — though it seems to drink a bit more than expected

Our long-term Volkswagen Golf has earned a curious nickname three months into guardianship.

It came about after regaling motoring colleague Ziphorah

Masethe about one of my drives home during inclement weather earlier in the year.

I told her that I felt warm and safe while ensconced within the confines of the German hatchback — and in my poeticism, I might have likened the experience to being a child in the womb.

Look, my experience in this regard was over two decades ago, so the memory might be a tad fuzzy. But the similarity of how impregnable and solid our C-segment Teuton feels makes for a metaphor that holds water, more or less.

Our 1.4 TSI DSG R-Line is now known, simply, as The Womb. Understandably, its mention raises eyebrows of those who are not

familiar with the context, caught in the crossfire of public conversation.

It will be with us until April next year and while it has not struggled to endear over the last 7,645km since delivery, it seems to drink a bit more than expected.

If only petrol cost the same per litre as milk these days. The figure currently residing in the digital display of the instrument cluster reads 6.9l/100km … More than a few digits off the claimed, combined cycle figure of 5.2l/100km.

Nor have we been leaden-footed with the accelerator, preferring to ebb along calmly upon its 92kW and 200Nm ripples, transferred to the front wheels in a silken manner through a dual-clutch gearbox with seven-forward cogs. Perhaps this consumption will abate as the miles rack up — let us make a conclusive call after that first 15,000km service.

Admittedly, the as-tested price of our car induced a wince when we met initially. A basic price of R394,600 was inflated by a number of options. This includes the R-Line kit, which costs R20,650 and deceives the uninitiated into believing that this is the more powerful, four-piped R version.

Add to that a R12,750 sunroof, R13,450 for headlamps with cornering lights and R7,100 for park distance control with a parallel parking aide.

That rounds it off to R448,500, or about R117,300 away from the standard sticker of a Golf GTI.