I have to admit that I approached this car with a slight sense of disappointment. Volkswagen is not known for making radical changes when it replaces one model with another, but even so the sixth-generation Golf is so similar to the Mk5 it superseded earlier this year that it can sometimes be hard to tell them apart. In particular I wish VW had made some effort to improve the all-round visibility (which it seems to have taken pains to avoid doing), though since the old Golf was pretty good in most other respects it's easy to see why the company wouldn't want to fiddle around too much.Still, I was conscious of a sinking heart when I took delivery of the car on the Tuesday lunchtime of this test. Late the following evening I was much happier with life, which was a surprise because at that time I was refilling the tank. Normally I don't enjoy doing this at all, because I tend to feel that the money I'm spending could otherwise have been invested in more enjoyable, if perhaps also more disreputable, endeavours, but this was different.And it was different because on that one tankful the Golf had completed just short of 680 miles, all but about 30 of them on various motorways. The trip computer (a £395 option on the SE) told me that this equated to 62mpg, which turned out to be a considerable exaggeration, but the calculated figure of 57.8mpg struck me as being pretty impressive all the same.The next tankful kept me going for 640 miles, this time on fast country roads with a bit of city work thrown in. And the really impressive thing about all this was that not once did I put any effort whatever into driving economically. If you were to try that you would surely be able to raise the total to 700 miles, and even 750 would by no means be beyond reach.All this makes it clear that the 108bhp two-litre turbo diesel engine is an impressively efficient unit. You'll gather from that power output - and performance figures of 120mph flat-out and 0-62mph in 10.7 seconds - that it's not especially strong, but the truth is that I never felt that it lacked anything, never wished that Volkswagen had instead supplied a Golf with a more powerful version of the same engine, even when there was some brisk overtaking to be done. In the context of the Golf, 108bhp may not be as much power as you want, but it's almost certainly as much power as you need.But great economy and reasonable performance are not the only reasons I started wishing this car was mine to keep rather than one to be collected after just a few days. The Golf is super-quiet, with hardly a rattle from the diesel motor even when it's being started from cold, and the resulting sense of quality is enhanced by the excellent ride.There is nothing silly about the way this car has been set-up. Its suspension is soft but well-damped, and its Pirelli P7 tyres have sensibly large sidewalls, so it deals with camber changes in a fuss-free manner and does a fine job of shielding its occupants from the effects of roads in dire need of resurfacing.The reasons that it rides so well also make it amazingly good fun to drive. This is not something that's obvious in your early experience of the car. At low to medium speeds it seems very ordinary - or, to state the case more plainly, dull. But the more you keep pushing the more those tyres seem to want to grip the tarmac, and eventually you get to the point where the engine has nothing more to give while the rest of the car still feels a very long way from its cornering limit.So what we have here is a quiet and comfortable car that rides beautifully, handles brilliantly and can't be persuaded to drink fuel at any more than a modest rate. What's not to like about that? You may think that this is just a mid-range version of one of the most mainstream models it's possible to imagine, and of course that's quite true; but another truth is that it's an astonishing piece of work, and although I realise that it won't appeal to everyone I'm not ashamed to say that there were times during this test when I couldn't think of a reason for buying anything else. Engine 1968 cc, 4 cylinders Power 110 bhp @4100 rpm Torque 184 ib/ft @1750 rpm Transmission 5 speed manual Fuel/CO2 57.6 mpg / 128 g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 10.7sec Top speed 120 mph Price From £17362.00 approx Release date 04/01/2009
Our Rating
