Back once again with the master
We know a great deal about the new Golf already. Of course we do – cars this important do not arrive unheralded. And the new Golf is important. When, last year, VW’s highest echelons were asked which of the company’s new-for-2019 hatchbacks, the all-new Mk8 Golf or the electric ID3, was the more important car, there wasn’t a moment’s hesitation: Golf.
We know the new Golf is technologically ambitious, beautiful on the inside and neat but conservative on the outside. But what’s it like to drive? Because that matters more than ever, when the rivals are this good. Ford’s Focus is a dynamic masterpiece and, incredibly, the new 1-series (with Golf-style transverse engine and front-wheel drive) is just as much fun to drive as its lairy, cramped and sideways rear-drive predecessor; just different. To cut to the chase, the Golf is excellent. On a fiendishly twisty stretch of Portuguese hill road, its corners by turns ultra-grippy or dew-drenched and slippery, depending on whether they’re in shadow or not, the Golf gets down to business.
Delve into the Individual driving mode menu on the touchscreen, swipe the slider to full Sport to tighten the damping and off you go. The dynamic management system can adjust damping forces individually, to help quell bodyroll, and like the BMW it applies slight braking to individual wheels mid-corner to keep things neutral. Unlike the Ford, which is happy to swing its rear axle and help you rotate, the VW is unerringly composed. The standard steering rack has been quickened compared with the outgoing Mk7.5’s, and the optional progressive rack fitted here (less effort at low speeds, less lock at high) feels more natural than ever.
Tackling each corner with less braking and more preserved momentum, the Golf refuses to break sweat. You keep expecting it to collapse into excessive roll and depressing understeer but it never does. Certainly you’re aware of a layer of insulation from the action, but neither the BMW nor the Ford can drop the Golf.
And when, inevitably, you hit trac and normal service is resumed, the Golf is the place to be. Its ride quality is staggering; just sublime on the occasionally awful southern European tarmac of our test route. (Or at least it’s sublime on the optional DCC – VW’s Dynamic Chassis Control – plus adaptive dampers and 17-inch wheels; the Ford and BMW ride on 18s as standard, and the VW can be ordered with 18s too.) Option prices are yet to be confirmed for the UK but reckon on having to find
£1000 for the DCC kit – a lot of cash, but it’s also a lot of ride quality.
In Comfort, the Golf rides better than almost any other mainstream car you can think of. Potholes simply disappear yet the VW never relinquishes its body control; never yields to uncomfortable, confidence-sapping wallow. The Ford isn’t far behind, and achieves its bump isolation through more affordable, lighter and less complex means. The M Sport 1-series rides the same tarmac like a race car, crashing over ridges and communicating every lump and bump straight to the seat of your long-suffering pants. It boils down to the roads you regularly drive. If they’re smooth and empty, treat yourself to a more communicative, agile hatchback than VW’s latest, greatest Golf. But if, like most of us, you need your new car to do it all, from runs into town to motorway days to regular commuting missions, you’d be brave to ignore the VW’s astonishing bandwidth.
The new Golf’s engine range stretches from 1.0-litre tiddlers to 2.0-litre diesels, all of them based on the Mk7’s range but evolved for greater eciency. There’ll be hybrids too, both plug-ins (including a hot GTE version) and mild eTSI, pairing petrol engines with a 48-volt startergenerator and battery. But this one is the hybrid-free 1.5-litre fourcylinder petrol, with cylinder deactivation and a six-speed manual gearbox. The shift is light of throw, wide of gate and fine but forgettable – a means to an end rather than a thing of mechanical joy like a Ford’s.
The 1.5-litre petrol four was a real star of the Mk7 Golf range, and it’s still great: so quiet you might need to lower a window to hear it running at idle, and as smooth as pâté. But it feels a touch less eager than it used ⊲
Potholes simply disappear, and yet the VW never relinquishes its body control
to, and strained at high revs. Its cause isn’t helped by the Golf’s long gear ratios; twisty roads feel too fast for second gear, too slow for third. In both cases blame the need to reduce emissions.
But the Golf’s powertrain, and indeed its chassis, are but support acts for the main event: the interior. If the Mk4 brought executive saloon levels of finish and refinement to the hatchback, the Mk8 stuffs the full luxe Audi A8 limo experience into a humble £25k hatch. Strong horizontal design themes give a breathtaking sense of space and pared-back, boutique-hotel minimalism, helped by the de-cluttering effect of the touchscreen infotainment. The materials feel impossibly expensive – so soft-touch you’d worry for their durability were this not a VW.
The primary means of interaction is via the 10-inch touchscreen (standard in the UK; entry-level German cars have an 8.25-inch screen) or by chatting to it. ‘Hello Volkswagen’ is the trigger phrase. Follow that up with ‘My feet are cold’ and you get the response: ‘No problem. Warming front-left [in our left-hand-drive test car].’ The car knows where you are and directs the airflow accordingly. Swish.
But as with so many new pieces of consumer technology, the Golf’s systems are frustrating as often as they’re joyous. For every quick, clever response, there’s a nonplussed request to repeat the question. And the touchscreen itself can be recalcitrant and slow to respond. It has an interface that needs concentrated learning, rather than intuitive menu-hopping on the fly. We might have been saddled with an unusually latent screen in our pre-production car; we’ve tried another that was far less laggy.
But the system can be so obfuscating you wonder if some traditional Golf buyers might be put off by a test drive. The modish slider controls used to adjust volume and temperature also don’t illuminate at night, and are slow to register your inputs, while the navigation map is awkward to pinch, swipe and pull about. The Tesla Model 3 just about gets away with its even more button-averse interior because its touchscreen is so intuitive and accessible; on the basis of this first meeting, the Golf’s just isn’t slick enough. Or at least, not yet. Like the Tesla, over-the-air updates may be able to smarten its interface over time.
So, the new Golf’s a much better car than it is giant smartphone. We’d far rather that than the other way around. ⊲
The Golf stu s the full luxe Audi A8 limo experience into a humble £25k hatch