EXCLUSIVE: We're first to drive VW ID Polo GTI – it deserves the badge

Familiar Recipe

Before the driving, Umbach gives me a guided technical tour of the vinyl-covered EV in front of us. Even so thoroughly disguised, it looks much more like a familiar, conventional hatchback than the ID 3 ever has.

This generation of cars, he says, will be all about Volkswagen getting back to its former self, rediscovering its old priorities. “The ID Polo had to just look normal – like a Volkswagen,” says Umbach with a smile. “And so, technically, it has a familiar layout and lots of technologies that you recognise. But it’s still an advanced small car.”

Volkswagen’s internal codename for the new EV platform on which the ID Polo is based (in development since 2021, as you might guess) is MEB21, says Umbach, but it has been rebranded for public consumption as the more catchy-sounding MEB+ platform.

It confers a conventional hot hatchback layout on the GTI: a front-mounted motor driving the front wheels, with strut-type front suspension and a torsion beam at the rear.

“The MEB-generation EVs [the ID 3 etc] taught us that switching to a rear-motor layout means adding weight [in order to engineer in sufficient crash protection] and losing boot space when it comes to compact cars,” explains Umbach.

“By contrast, MEB+ makes the ID Polo lighter, simpler and more efficient. We can carry enough battery capacity here [52kWh usable] to deliver more than 260 miles of WLTP range from the GTI and up to 280 miles from other versions. But having the motor up front allows us to regenerate energy more efficiently and keeps the powertrain packaging tight.”

“I also think front-wheel drive is what hot hatchback drivers expect: it’s the classic template,” adds Umbach.

Although when it came to delivering driving dynamics, his team certainly plundered Volkswagen’s toy cupboard for advanced driveline, steering and suspension systems of the sort that only a big back catalogue of hot hatch wrangling can put at your disposal – and that most of this car’s rivals don’t have.

The ID Polo GTI’s electric power and torque reserves – 223bhp and 214lb ft – find their way to the road via an only slightly modified version of BorgWarner’s VAQ torque-vectoring active front differential, as seen on the Golf GTI Edition 50 (tuned for slightly less overall torque transfer but also to be faster-acting than in the Golf).

It gets 19in wheels as standard, with tyres of up to 235-section, but which sit inside wheel arches that permit an even greater combined wheel and tyre sidewall diameter than the current Golf GTI does (680mm versus 650mm), to the improvement of ride isolation.

Dynamic Chassis Control Plus adaptive dampers are fitted as standard, also to the benefit of ride isolation and comfort. And the GTI gets unique front hubs and steering knuckles compared with the regular ID Polo, which lower the front-axle roll centre, dial in more negative camber at the front wheels and cut the steering ratio from 15:1 down to 14:1.

Progressive (passive variable-rate) steering is standard, the ID Polo’s standard front anti-roll bars have been stiffened and its suspension springs have been shortened (by 15mm in terms of prevailing ride height) and stiffened likewise.

Umbach and his team are particularly proud of the special twist beam rear axle of the ID Polo GTI, with its mountings and bushings cleverly designed to allow some longitudinal ‘ride’ compliance but keep lateral axle location much more closely controlled. “It’s the best twist beam I think we’ve ever made,” he says.

Practical Matters

We duck inside what is a fairly snug cabin yet still fit for four adults, to be met by the familiar cloth disguise that gets pinned to the scuttle and then draped over the dashboard in prototypes like these. It’s there so you can still operate the car without really being able to scrutinise its fixtures and fittings.

The driver’s seat feels small compared with the hot hatchback class norm and doesn’t offer cushion extension in support of longer thighs, but it’s nonetheless quite grippy and comfy, securing your backside well and feeling like somewhere you would be happy to spend plenty of time.

In the back, there’s probably slightly more outright passenger space than a modern supermini typically provides – which is one in the eye for the Alpine A290, Renault 5 and electric Mini Cooper, which are all quite a bit tighter by comparison (and in one case three-door only). Volkswagen is clearly to be taken at its word about its wish to make this a really usable, versatile daily driver. Of course it is.

The disguise leaves a few things uncovered. The fairly small, two-spoke steering wheel, with its flattened-off top and bottom rim sections, is chief among them, which it’s reassuring to find has spokes stuffed with proper buttons rather than ‘brush-by-mistake’ capacitive ones.

At the bottom, what you first take to be simply a decorative GTI badge is actually a drive mode button, one press of which puts the car into its most sporty and demonstrative driving setting.

More widely, you can see enough Dinamica microfibre on the door panels and dash to give the interior a strikingly plush and expensive, performance-flavoured vibe.

Under the central air vents I can just about see a row of physical ventilation controls, so not everything here will depend on the touchscreen infotainment system (another of Volkswagen’s learnings, clearly).

But my favourite discovery is on the digital instrument screen, where a few flicks of the ‘view’ toggle button unearths some retro-styled mock analogue dials styled up to look just like those of the Mk1 Golf GTI, with a faux digital clock between them.

Apparently the retro theme extends to the infotainment touchscreen too, where it adds audio remote controls styled like a cassette tape and a charge meter mimicking a 1980s fuel gauge.

All a bit twee, perhaps, but all undoubtedly good, evocative fun – if you ask this millennial reviewer, at any rate.

Playing Polo

Umbach accompanies me in the front passenger seat as I head out on the road – and my first impressions confirm plenty of trademark GTI dynamic characteristics.

First across the gravel and then onto the Tarmac and up to speed, the ID Polo GTI rides tautly but quietly. It’s firmer-feeling than most compact EVs but not at all jittery or restive, and those adaptive dampers, with their graduated touchscreen adjustability, allow plenty of dynamic versatility.

At its comfiest, the suspension is supple enough to breathe a little with the road surface as it rises and falls, to round the edges off craggy inputs nicely and not to be wearing on the senses.

But at its firmest, it fosters lots of connectedness with what’s underneath you, creates lots of directness and agility and great body control, and provides a strong platform for the driven front wheels to push against.

Even at full tilt, they don’t feel like they’re pushing with an excessive amount of power – just enough to feel energetic and to keep you occupied and engaged in what you’re doing.

They’re certainly pushing hard enough to feed back plenty of tractive forces through the steering, mind you. Otherwise it’s quite pacey but weighted intuitively, with enough centre feel to avoid any kind of nervous, hyperactive sense.

Even the tractive feedback mentioned isn’t traditional torque steer, because nothing in the front axle is being deformed by those drive forces and the car is going precisely where it’s pointed.

Editor-in-chief Steve Cropley once described it to me as ‘wheel fight’, which is much closer to the mark. The ID Polo GTI doesn’t have loads of it under power, rather just enough to make it feel lively and interactive; to make you tighten your grip on the steering rim just a little as you fire it out of a corner or over an uneven surface; and to make you realise that this is a car you can make rotate with your right foot almost as easily as you can with your wrists, and which can come really fast out of hairpin bends without troubling its traction control at all.

Shift paddles behind the steering wheel spokes give you manual control of the energy regeneration, in the usual way.

There’s also some imitation engine noise played by the car’s stereo speakers once you select GTI mode. This comes across as slightly annoying and overcooked, principally because it adds in arbitrary fake gearshifts, which come without any interruption to the actual power delivery. Mercifully, you can use Individual mode instead, where there’s no such fakery.

What are the most impressive things about the drive? I’d say how well matched the car’s performance level seems to be with the capacity of its front axle to create traction.