When a car as important as the Volkswagen Golf gets updated, renewed and generally smartened up, we all simply need to sit up and take notice.
Because half a million Europeans a year, among them some 70,000 Brits, can’t all be wrong.
The Golf remains Europe’s biggest-selling new car and was the UK’s most popular family hatchback last year (assuming that you combine sales of the hatchback, estate and SV bodystyles). That’s not a bad result from a firm supposedly still racked by a Dieselgate-related crisis.
With its timeless progressive design and clever ‘semi-premium’ positioning, the Golf continues to dominate the heartland of the market for compact family cars, being impressively complete and competitive in almost every important way and forcing its competitors to seek their successes farther towards the notional margins.
And, having been launched in 2012, the current, seventh-generation Golf has now been in receipt of its big mid-life facelift.
This has brought all-new and revised engines, a new gearbox, a refreshed look inside and out, new infotainment systems and a price realignment to address a persistent criticism from some: that VW has always charged a little bit too much for its European hatchback icon.
