All new Golf unveiled

Volkswagen has chiseled away at its Golf template and sculpted a Mark VII Golf that is 100kg lighter, 23 per cent more fuel efficient, more spacious inside and powered by new engines across the board.

The result is a Golf VII that promises a headline number of 3.2L/100km for the BlueMotion diesel, which is more than enough to blow its premium German rivals out of the water even before a single car leaves a showroom.

The BlueMotion’s astonishing 85-gram CO2 number has shocked Mercedes-Benz, which had bet heavily on its new A-Class heading the small car consumption sheets. BMW too, which had high hopes for its 116d Efficient Dynamics edition.

Benz has dropped a Renault-built diesel into the most economical version of its A-Class to deliver 99 grams of CO2, yet even the base Golf diesel delivers precisely that figure. The abovementioned economy-oriented BlueMotion smashes it by more than 0.5L/100km.

A huge reduction in weight has played a big role, with the Golf shedding 100kg thanks to savings in the body structure, the engines, the running gear, the electronics and even cabin trim.

No engine in the range carries over untouched with VW claiming completely new status all-round. Two new engine generations headline the range, channeled through five and six-speed manual gearboxes or six and seven-speed DSG dual-clutch transmissions.

The Golf also treads deeply into prestige and premium territory with an array of standard electronic safety features that would seem more at home on an A8 than a mass-market small car. It’s a long list that includes a crash-prevention system that brakes the car by itself, the electronic diff lock from the outgoing Golf GTi and a new multi-collision braking system to avoid multiple hits in the one accident.

“This Volkswagen’s great potential is demonstrated by the fact that with this car we have been able to reverse the upward spiral in weight,” Volkswagen Group Chairman, Dr Martin Winterkorn (pictured), said overnight at the car's preview.

Consumption has been a big factor with the Golf’s development team and VW has delivered an average reduction of 13.9 per cent across the range.

All the petrol engines are turbo and boast direct fuel injection and start-stop technology across the board. Diesel too gets the 'smarts'.

The stock petrol engine will be a 63kW 1.4-litre that is unlikely to ever sip Australian fuel. Instead, we will get the 103kW version of the engine which is 13kW more powerful than the old base Golf four pot, but uses 1.4L/100km less.

It has done this partly by using direct fuel-injection and other refinements, but largely by introducing cylinder deactivation. Dubbed Active Cylinder Management (ACT) by Volkswagen, it has already been seen in Audi’s A1 Sportback, S6, S7 and S8.

Essentially, when the driving demands ask for less than 85Nm of torque, it shuts down its middle two cylinders between 1400-4000rpm, saving 0.4L/100km.

“This duty to build sustainable cars in large numbers is something that we’ve always been conscious of here at Volkswagen,” Dr Winterkorn insisted.

“It was therefore important to us to build the most fuel-efficient Golf ever, which at the same time had to remain affordable. And we’ve succeeded in doing that.”

The diesels are all new, and achieve the old BlueMotion’s consumption numbers even with the base version of the engine, which VW insists will save around 120,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions each year in Europe alone.

The basic diesel is a 77kW four-cylinder, while the BlueMotion takes the high-eco ground and a 110kW version of the same engine will actually be the strongest Golf engine at the launch.

Volkswagen has yet to make any performance claims (when quizzed, one VW spokesman asked: “Why are you talking about performance when petrol is €2 a litre?”) and has yet to release its torque figures or full specifications.

It’s also larger, with more rear legroom and 30 litres more luggage capacity.

In Germany, its base version will retain the same €16,975 entry ticket as the outgoing Golf.

It’s a bigger car, but not much bigger. At 4255mm, it’s 56mm longer than its predecessor and VW has stretched it 13mm wider to 1799mm. Critical to its handling, its axles are now 59mm further apart to create a 2637mm wheelbase, yet it’s 28mm lower at 1452mm.

Volkswagen has transferred some, but not all, of that added size into the cabin, too. At 1750mm, it’s 14mm longer inside and VW has given up some luggage length to make the occupant area bigger.

The driver’s seat’s farthest rearward location is 20mm further from the pedals than before, the pedals are further apart, too, and there is 15mm more rear legroom.

Good news continues for the back seat occupiers, because it has 30mm more shoulder and 20mm more elbow room back there, too.

The luggage area hasn’t suffered too badly, either. The loading height has dropped 17mm to 665mm, the boot opening has stretched 47mm wider (now over a metre, at 1023mm) and the inner boot is 228mm wider (1272mm) than it was. It’s 380 litres large and it can be made larger.

There is a new option of folding the front passenger seat flat to bump the cargo length out to 2412mm, though it’s 1588mm with just the rears folded down.

40kg: engines
23kg: body-in-white (BIW)
26kg: running gear
14kg: post BIW body structures
7kg: front and rear seats
6kg: electronics
2.7kg: air-conditioning
1.4kg: under-dash cross member
0.4kg: dashboard

The electronic systems might be lighter, but they’re not lesser. The Golf GTi’s electronic diff lock, which precisely brakes the unladen wheel to direct torque to the outside wheel under hard acceleration, is standard across the range. It acts like a limited-slip differential without the weight or expense, for some software coding.

Then there is the Adaptive Cruise Control, which maintains the distance to the car in front. It works from 30-160km/h in the manual Golfs or from 0-160km/h in a DSG-equipped car. The DSG cars also have Stop & Go, so it works in traffic jams, too.

But the headline act is the Multi-Collision Braking system in reaction to German figures that show a quarter of all crashes involve more than one collision. The system uses the car’s airbag sensors to detect a crash, then it uses the Electronic Stability Control’s computer to keep the brakes on after the first crash.

The system limits the braking to 0.6g to reduce the chances of a car crashing, then bouncing off into another car, though it can be over-ridden by a driver applying the throttle again.

Among the Golf VII’s array of electronic safety measures are its Front Assist and City Emergency Braking Assist systems, which use the cruise control’s radar systems to detect crashes and will brake hard to try to avoid them, or at least minimise their impact.

There is also a Lane Keeping Assist system, Fatigue Detection (which measures a driver’s steering, throttle and braking inputs at the start of a drive and keeps referring back to them to measure alertness), Traffic Sign Recognition and an electronic parking brake.

The Golf VII also gets a standard Parking Assistant, with 360-degree vision display, so you only have to push a button, select Reverse and have the car park for you.

It also adopts electric steering as well, with Eco, Normal, Comfort and Sport modes, plus a mode that can be programmed to suit individual tastes.

VW Group design supremo, Walter de Silva, and VW Brand head designer, Klaus Bischoff, both admitted they had to be extremely careful of preserving the Golf everybody knew, while still moving the game to the next hole, so to speak.

“One of the keys to the Golf’s success lies in its continuity,” Mr de Silva insisted.

“There are but a handful of cars in the world with a design that, like the Golf’s, has been refined, tweaked and enhanced down the decades and thus becomes timeless.”

While admitting it had been a tough job, Mr Bischoff said the result was a car that was instantly recognisable as new but also instantly recognisable as a Golf.

“The Golf’s unmistakable product features include the typical C-pillars, the long roofline, the typical window line and the characteristic front and rear sections with their transverse elements,” he said.

“These details make the new Golf more unique, more valuable and more durable than the majority of other compact cars. You could also say that the Golf’s design is inherently stable.

“The language of form is logical, solid, product-focused, pure and precise and reflects the brand’s design DNA as a perfect model of creativity. The base architecture of the new Golf is therefore unmistakable," claimed Mr Bischoff.

“It feels uncomplicated, strong, comprehensible, reliable and safe. Starting with the pure element of this clear base architecture, details such as the economical use and placement of sculptural lines are more like fine nuances,” Mr Bischoff finished," he said.

The man actually responsible for nibbling away at the original Golf sculpture for the sixth time, designer Marc Lichte, highlighted that the job was made harder than it seemed because the new MQB architecture significantly changed the Golf’s proportions.

“The proportions have changed because we have taken advantage of the Modular Transverse Matrix,” Mr Lichte said.

“The front wheels, for example, have moved 43mm further forward so the front overhang is shorter and at the same time the bonnet looks longer.

“We sought to underline these modified proportions with design elements. Below the door handles we have integrated the now-clearly visible, very sharp character line.

“While this line is broken by the wheel arches, it is otherwise continuous and is stylistically reflected in the chrome bars of the radiator grille and headlights and, at the back, in the white lateral bars of the rear light clusters.

“This line lowers the apparent centre of gravity and makes the car appear more solid on the road.

“Another important element is the new line along the side shoulder, directly below the windows. This line starts at the front in the headlight, then glides under the mirror which is positioned right on the line, all the way through to the rear side window,” he explained.

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