right it is new Volkswagen Golf time and that's very exciting because just like an Apple iPhone
this is a product that has been designed to appeal to literally everyone why is that
exciting well just like a frozen ice core from the North Pole or a time capsule this car sums
up exactly where the motor industry is right now and more importantly exactly what it is that car
buyers like us want from their cars now the Gulf achieves this by being just a little bit better
in all those key areas than its rivals well this might be a little bit more fun to drive or perhaps
a bit more practical but altogether the Gulf is the better car so what does this new golf
tell us about what it is people want from their cars well for start it's not an SUV and it's no
longer electric that job has been passed on to the id3 which comes out in 2020 clearly that
means there's still a core of car buyers that want what the old Gulf offered but we're slightly lower
running costs and more tech that's exactly what you get in a VW Golf this time around there's a
simply enormous amount of engine choice whether it's petrol diesel multi red or plug-in hybrid
and performance versions of all of those which will follow later Volkswagen says that this time
around its best performing engine dropped to 17% more efficient and its ever-popular 2-liter
TDI produces 80% less NOx thanks to a clever new ugly system like I said before there's no
electric golf this time around which is kind of sad because the last one was such an easy thing
to get on with we mustn't dwell on that because there's a simply bewildering amount of choice
for this car not only are there more traditional three and four cylinder one liter or 1.5 litre
petrol engine there's also a 2-liter diesel new to the range this time around is a 48 volt mild
hybrid system that works with the 1.5 litre petrol engine this comes with a DSG gearbox our standard
and promises much lower running costs than the standard 1.5 liter petrol if you're after even
lower running costs then there are actually two plug-in hybrid models to choose from this time
around although we only get one of them there's a 204 horsepower plug-in and the 245 horsepower GTE
now we've driven the petrol and the diesel on the launch of the Marquette Golf and to
be honest with you this 150 horsepower 2 liter diesel is absolutely everything you could want
from your golf it's got plenty of power and torque and it's smooth and really quiet - you can have
that 2-liter TDI with a six-speed manual gearbox or with a 7-speed DSG automatic like I've got here
there's not really much to say about either those they're both frankly as brilliant as I've always
been the automatics particularly good in that it's very smooth when you want it to be and then if you
want to do some more sporty dynamic driving it can also shift very quickly - one big difference
of the DSG gearbox this time around is the fact that you know I'm going to get the big kind of
clunky mechanical gear shift in the center console that's been replaced by this electronic switch in
the market golf and that's a little bit like what we've seen in Porsche of recently - it's perhaps
a little bit harder to get a hold of but then to be honest what you're not really going to be doing
that when you're driving anyway and the fact that it's smaller and doesn't require any kind
of mechanical gubbins under it means it unlocks quite a lot of storage space in this part of the
center console so that's a good thing that does quite handily bring me on to what is perhaps the
biggest change in market golf and that is in the interior where the more traditional analog dials
have been replaced by two big screens and all the buttons that used to get round here have all been
tidied up into these sort of multifunction touch controls and this slidy thing here that does all
sorts of things what's nice is that all of that actually comes to standard so you get a 12 point
2 5 inch virtual cockpit sort of dial screen that you've got there and then the main 10 inch
infotainment screen on the right Volkswagen is calling this its inner vision cockpit and that's
a ton that obviously we've heard before in the Tuareg that system features two big screens that
don't appear to have any kind of divide between the two it just looks like one big wide screen
that goes across the cabin this is not quite as effective as that but it does have an awful lot
of real estate on those screens there to display all sorts of useful things the overall effect
is really nice actually thanks to that reduced button count it doesn't really feel like you've
lost any other kind of functions that you would have from all those buttons they've all just been
tidied up into little group so you've got all your lights and kind of your fog lights and the bit to
diminish the windscreen over here that's all kind of clustered together and then you've got things
like your climate control or the driver assist and how to get to the drive mode as well which is kind
of in this cluster but over screen here those keys kind of work like shortcuts to submenus on the
main screen so if you press the climate control button for instance it opens up another menu
on the main screen there where you've got more buttons for things like putting on your heated
seat or turning up the temperature or turning the auto air-conditioning off and it works the same
for kind of drive mode you press that one or the drive mode options appear on the screen as well
so although there are fewer buttons you haven't really lost any of the control that you had from
the old con connectivity he's been giving a bit of a boost in the market gulf so you get wireless
bluetooth apple carplay now and you still got and roberto - although you need to use a wire for that
you also get a system called we can x+ which gives you access via your smart phone to things like the
service history the ability to lock and unlock the car and pre-programmed the climate control
there are four innovative features of the eighth generation Goff's interior
the panoramic roof can be opened and closed by a swipe of this touch control in the roof this
swipe panel can be used to alter the stereo volume climate control temperature and even
the heated seats using different types of gesture VW's hey Volkswagen voice control
can understand contextual questions special microphones detects where you're sitting so
if the driver asks for warmer feet only the climate on that side of the car is changed
ambient lighting can be customized in three different zones on the upper middle and lower
sections of the interior this gives you a huge range of color schemes and effects as well as
some neat pre-programmed settings to now the one area that you could always criticize at Volkswagen
Golf on was the way that it drive that's not to say that it was a particularly bad handling car
far from it it was very grippy very confident it was never the most fun experience in the
world in a lot of ways that was a good thing because it meant it didn't have to compromise
on things like everyday usability and comfort and things like that this time around Volkswagen says
it's worked on widening the bandwidth of the cars ability which is to say it's more comfortable with
the comfortable and and more fun to drive at the sporty L it's achieved this as you would expect
by using a load of tech and that's good but it's also bad because it means that some golf's are
going to handle quite well and others are going to handle not quite as well like a great many of
its rivals the Volkswagen Golf now offers you two types of rear axle depending on which model you
buy those with under 150 horsepower get a torsion beam and those with over 150 horsepower or 4matic
all-wheel drive which is basically the Golf R get a proper multi-link setup elsewhere there
are three systems that Volkswagen says are going to improve the way that the golf handles that is
XDS brake based torque vectoring dynamic chassis control adaptive dampers and progressive steering
we'll get on to what those do in a minute but it's worth noting that we don't really know what the
UK spec is going to be yet there's a suggestion that all three of those things kind of grouped
together so it's quite likely that perhaps they'll either come as standard on the base back car which
is just called golf this time around or they'll be in some kind of driving pack that you add on
what makes the market golf different from the last car is that there's a system that makes
all of those three things talk to each other so they work in harmony rather than one sort
putting in an input that conflicts with something else that the other wants to do once again that's
kind of an idea that we've seen in Porsche before and that system is called 4d chassis control and
that works very well in the Gulf that means those systems can work together to make sure all four
tires have got as much grip as possible and that power is sent to the wheel that can best use it
what's nice is that unlike a more rudimentary traction control system that's just going to
slow you down when it thinks you're driving too fast all of those things in a golf work together
kind of unobtrusively behind the scenes to just leave the car with a really good sense of balance
and grip you get a real sense of that wide range of abilities that Volkswagen says it's given the
golf this time around it is super comfortable at the comfortable end and while it's not going
to rival a 911 gt3 it sporty n it is quite fun to drive thanks to that confidence-inspiring level of
grip it's also not particularly fair to judge the ultimate handling characteristics of the market
VW golf on this 2 liter everyday diesel model be about to wait until the GTI the GTI TCR will
be our to do that what this model needs to do is just be incredibly easy to use everyday and as far
as I'm concerned it gets a massive tick in that department the Marquette golf then does everything
that its predecessor did so well a little bit better with the added flexibility of a massive
engine range and a much more modern high-tech interior in terms of practicality there hasn't
been the biggest change because practically there didn't need to be the last golf had a
really good boot and so does this it certainly feels a little bit sharper to drive this time
around but I still think the forward focus is better the problem is you're only going to get
to use that it may be one out of ten drives and for the rest of the time the Volkswagen Golf is
still the benchmark when it comes to a practical spacious comfortable everyday five-door hatchback