Test: This is how the new VW Polo drives

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• And why do you still need the Golf now??
• The Polo can be upgraded to an intelligence beast
• There will also be a diesel Polo again

And why do you still need the Golf now??

Does VW see the throne of its eternal bestseller this time? The new Polo could put the Golf in trouble

Source: Volkswagen

VW took its time with the task of designing a successor to one of the world’s most successful small cars. What is coming out on the streets now exceeds some expectations.

D.Life somehow goes on and that’s why at VW they not only take care of the diesel chaos they have created themselves, but they continue to build and sell cars (with good success, by the way) and even develop new ones. The compact SUV T-Roc has just been presented. The I.D. As the revenant of the original VW bus, Buzz should inspire fans of electromobility from 2021, and then there is actually something completely normal like a new Polo.

Polo – have you heard of it? This is this inconspicuous small car, which has always been a bit in the shadow of golf since 1975 sails, but has also been sold more than 14 million times since then. The sixth generation is now on the market, and on the outside it is as simple as ever (which does the designers injustice, but more on that later), but under the sheet metal you can find something downright revolutionary.

As the last of the classic models in the group, the Polo has now switched to the MQB platform that was introduced in 2012. This modular transverse matrix is ​​the basis for many different cars right up to the Skoda Superb. What they have in common: They all have the engine installed transversely, all drive with front-wheel drive, and the distance between the front axle and the pedals is always the same.

Everything else can be designed flexibly, but the MQB models have a lot in common, and this is now also the case with the Polo. It has become longer (plus eight centimeters), the distance between the axles has increased (plus nine centimeters), the car is now significantly wider (plus seven centimeters), but lower (minus two centimeters) and yet equipped with more headroom. And the trunk grew from 280 to 351 liters.

The new Polo measures 4.05 meters and costs at least 12,975 euros

Source: Volkswagen

That is impressive, but it was also necessary. Because the previous Polo, many of its competitors, in terms of dimensions, had run away, Ford Fiesta and Opel Corsa for example, had already passed the four-meter mark some time ago. Not to follow suit was not an alternative, as Sales Director Jurgen Stackmann says. "In this segment, customers pay particular attention to how much car they get for their money."

By the way, every new generation of Polo is said to have turned customers away from the larger Golf. But that’s only partially true, after all, the Golf is not exactly getting any smaller – the exterior dimensions of the Polo VI at least correspond to the Golf III presented in 1991, so it keeps a clear distance to the current Golf VII.

When driving, however, it approaches, that is simply a question of the basic design. All MQB cars have a high rigidity of the body, they have a pleasant, very ergonomic seating position, offer practically no annoying background noise, are easy to steer and are comfortable to drive.

The Polo is no exception, even if it naturally lacks the solidity of a Golf or even a Passat. But what you have saved in your memory as a “small car” must be updated with the release of the new Polo in September 2017 at the latest.

The Polo can be upgraded to an intelligence beast

In any case, this small car is neither a rattle box nor a renunciation mobile, neither lame nor loud, neither bumpy nor neglected. On the contrary: MQB offers Polo developers access to all the assistance systems that are conceivable at VW today, and so the Polo can be upgraded to a rolling intelligence beast that automatically brakes when necessary, recognizes pedestrians walking into the street, which automatically maintains the distance to the vehicle in front, automatically parks and clears parking spaces, detects cars in the blind spot …

As standard, however, only the automatic emergency brake including pedestrian detection is on board, everything else costs just as much as the virtual cockpit, in which the driver can set the size and position of the speedometer, rev counter and navigation map according to his wishes.

VW only offers the Polo as a four-door model. This saves the passengers the tiresome climb on the back seat

Source: Volkswagen

Anyone who wants to buy the Polo as simply as possible pays 12,975 euros for the four-door base model Trendline (two-door models are no longer available) with a 65-hp, 1.0-liter three-cylinder. It has always been a VW virtue to offer the Polo with a rather low engine power – it doesn’t tear the sausage off the plate with that, but there are enough people for whom that is not so important when driving a car. You will continue to be served by VW.

You can also have the smallest Polo engine with 75 hp, and it is also available in two turbo versions, with 95 and 115 hp. We tested these two, one with 115 hp and a six-speed gearbox in the Highline model (price has not yet been determined) and one with 95 hp and seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox in the Beats model.

This is based on the mid-range Comfortline equipment line and has a particularly youthful design (including rally stripes, sports seats and a 300-watt system from Beats), but then costs 20,650 euros. After all, the Beats model has a USB interface for the smartphone as standard, in all other Polo models you have to pay an extra 225 euros for it.

There will also be a diesel Polo again

Before installing a diesel engine Incidentally, VW does not shy away from it, but the tried and tested 1.6-liter TDI will come later in the year (with either 80 or 95 hp) and was not yet available for testing. That is why VW has not yet announced any consumption figures; the three-cylinder petrol engines are all just under five liters per 100 kilometers according to the standard.

In any case, like all other small cars, the Polo is mainly sold as a gasoline engine – as everyone knows by now, exhaust gas cleaning with diesel is not uncomplicated and therefore expensive. In Europe, the diesel share of the Polo is just 20 percent, and this value will fall, as VW boss Herbert Diess believes. "Over time, diesel will disappear from the Polo segment because exhaust gas purification is simply becoming more and more expensive."

The same applies to the Golf class, which in the future could achieve CO2 values ​​like good diesels with the help of mild hybrid systems. In the future, the VW boss sees diesel only as a power source for SUVs, large station wagons, vans and sedans. VW no longer wants to develop diesel with small displacements, "there is probably no next generation of the 1.6-liter diesel".

As always, the body of the Polo is kept quite simple. The colorful consoles in the cockpit are new

Source: Volkswagen

As an economical and clean alternative, VW is offering a natural gas engine for the first time in the Polo on. It is based on the three-cylinder petrol engine and will produce 90 hp. This engine, too, comes later in the year, just like the 1.5-liter four-cylinder with 150 hp and the Polo GTI with a 2.0-liter engine and 200 hp.

Despite all the innovations, the new VW Polo is a bit like the old one: Versatile, always a touch more serious than others, and despite the new architecture and the larger dimensions, its visual appearance has hardly changed. Not because the design department didn’t do anything, but because the Polo is once again a classic example of VW design is – some call it boring and others call it sustainable.

In any case, a Polo that can hardly be influenced by fashion trends will not have to be ashamed even after ten years – like many VW models (Best example: Golf IV) it will outlast optically. Whether this also applies to the bright colors now offered in the interior ("Velvet Red", "Reefblue", Energetic Orange "), we leave that open.

Otherwise, however, you can’t go wrong with this car, provided you can afford the desired combination of engine and equipment.

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