I know what you’re thinking. A VW Golf with just 1.4 liters is unworthy of the attention of a Motor Trend reader. Possibly beneath his or her contempt. When’s the one with the performance coming along?
Well, the easy answer is that the one with the performance, the new GTI, will be at the Paris auto show in October, to go on sale in Europe in mid-2009 and the U. S. a year or so later.
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There are some more interesting numbers for this Golf, too. Equipped with this “twin-charged” 1.4 engine and seven-speed DSG, the sixth generation of Golf is faster, more accelerative, and more civilized than the Mk5 generation, with a 2.0L engine and six-speed torque converter auto. Yet it’s 28% more economical in the European test cycle.
And sure enough this is an incremental update. At first it’s hard to appreciate the extent of the progress because it feels so much like the one before. You sit in the same position, address a dash that’s spookily reminiscent of the old one, and you operate controls that move with that familiar well-damped weighting. Apart from those fuel-economy gains, which you don’t feel while driving, it all seems like no change.
This chassis is fun to hustle through curves, as was the previous generation’s. The steering has that reassuring German heft to it, and the rack and bushing are deftly calibrated to swing the car into open, fast arcs without nervousness. The flipside is that it could be keener to turn into second-gear corners, but even here the well-balanced tire grip and low roll provide trustworthy responsiveness. The steering’s power-assist is all electric, and it’s calibrated with the ESP to nudge you in the right direction to compensate for crosswinds of cambered roadways.
Back to that 1.4 engine. The supercharger piles on the pressure early, and you hit maximum torque at 1800 rpm. By 3500 rpm the turbo takes over fully. Result is a huge and lag-free torque band, and because each piston is so tiny, a remarkable freedom from vibration.
VW says it has wrought refinement and quality gains without spending extra money on building this new generation. The exception is that complex, jewel-like engine. But VW is banking on its ability to attract premium pricing as fuel-consumption-related issues begin to bite—whether the price of gas or the taxes attached to consumers or CAFE. It’s so thrifty yet so drivable that the firm is seriously considering an intro to the U. S. in about 2010, alongside the next-generation GTI.
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