Volkswagen Polo 2018 Review - International

Even if you’ll never be in the market for the Volkswagen Polo, you’ve got to admire the little sucker.

Even in its fifth generation, it refused to be defined by its size, played at ride and handling like a big car and had practicality and strength to spare.

And the sixth-generation Polo is even better, stronger, bigger and safer, with more driver assistance systems and more digital frippery.

It has morphed into a little big car with astonishing levels of ride, noise and powertrain sophistication, especially for a car that kicks off at only €12,975 for the Polo Ground Zero in Germany.

It has grown up again, adding 81mm in length to sit at 4053mm as it moves across to Volkswagen’s ubiquitous MQB architecture, which hosts everything from the Golf to the Tiguan and the huge China/USA/Russia Atlas SUV.

Loaded with bells and whistles
Though this is its smallest application, the Polo still uses all of the stuff offered by the MQB’s mechanical and electronic systems and even debuts (as an expensive option) the next generation of Volkswagen’s digital instrument cluster, well before the brand’s big cars get it.

It offers self-parking for both parallel and 90-degree parks, it offers automatic city braking, active cruise control, lane-keeping systems and pedestrian warnings.

It does all of this in a car that has seen 92mm of metal added to wheelbase (now at 2548mm) compared to the outgoing car, and most of that has been given over to the rear seat’s occupants. Its luggage capacity has also grown 71 litres, from 280 litres to 351.

While we’re at it, at 1751mm, it’s 69mm wider, though the roof height has been lowered 7mm to 1446.

So it’s bigger, but it’s also more practical and it’s still economical and, at 1105kg for the lightest version, it’s roughly line ball with its predecessor for weight.

Volkswagen insists the body design is a sight to behold, and it probably is if you like your A0-sized hatchbacks looking distinctly like a quite famous other Volkswagen hatch that’s slightly bigger, but a bit fresher.

The proportions move away now from the slightly long-nose stance of the Gen V version and towards a bit more balance, and that’s important for the interior space.

The cargo area, in particular, is a big step up. You can tell just by looking at it. It now fits a pair of carry-on roller bags lengthways or even a mighty big suitcase laid flat with some space left over for a computer bag or two.

It’s 705mm long and that can rise to 1380mm with the 60/40-split folding rear seats down, which they do with a much flatter layout than before.

The downside now is that the Polo loses its false-floor, that gave it a massive boost in practicality and allowed drivers to hide things they’d rather people didn’t see. The floor still lifts up, but there’s a spare 15-inch tyre in there now.

The rear seats are the primary beneficiaries of the boosted wheelbase, with more headroom despite the lower roofline and demonstrably more legroom than its predecessor. It’s now 1425mm wide at the back, which is exactly the same as at the front, and that’s pretty useful.

Big-car features
The front seats are the place to be, though, especially for the driver. Everything is slightly tilted towards the driver now, including the air-conditioning controls, which have been dropped down very low in the central console area.

Besides its 14 body colours, the Polo now runs to eight colours for the dashpad, including a couple of matte finishes; all paint technology coming from the Beetle.

The base cabin spec delivers a traditional pair of analogue dials, split by a small digital screen, but that can be replaced (at a significant cost) for an 11.7-inch digital instrument cluster that runs to 133dpi, with 1280 x 480 pixels.

It’s very, very clear and clean, with the ability to switch between views and which can be tailored to a degree that even the just-launched Arteon can’t replicate.

On the same level as the dash, but over in the centre, is an infotainment screen that can be either 6.5 or 8.0 inches with three levels of sophistication, including a nice glass screen over the bigger units. They’re partly gesture control, with supplementary touch-screen options popping up as your fingers get closer.

Volkswagen also makes much of the connectivity of the Polo, which makes it even more odd that the standard car doesn’t come with a USB socket (it costs another €205 in Germany, as part of a package). Pay enough, though, and Volkswagen will deliver inductive charging.

There are disappointments, though. The plastic trim down low in the cabin feels a fair bit below premium and they’ve done away with overhead grab handles. CEO Herbert Deiss insists the decision was taken before he arrived in mid-2015, but it means the only grab handles are part of the armrests, and they’re really awkward to hang your dry cleaning off.

There are also some design bits and pieces, which Volkswagen has almost hidden cleverly, but not quite. Where the two pieces of colour for the dashboard meet, the bottom is separated by the steering column, but the top part has an angled seam that’s usually hidden from the driver by the steering wheel. But it’s not hidden from the passenger, and neither is the similar seam around the gear lever (usually hidden from the driver by the handbrake lever).

But that’s about it for downsides in a cabin that’s clean, open, airy and very comfortable, even if the instrument-cluster cowl feels slightly high and the sharp angle of the A-pillars takes some getting used to.

Under the bonnet
The new Polo runs a raft of conventional powertrains for now, and there are no immediate plans to electrify the Polo. Instead, it will eventually receive some mild hybridisation to lower the petrol engines’ CO2 emissions, but for now they’ll be powered by petrol, diesel or natural gas.

That means starting with a pair of non-turbo, three-cylinder engines that help the Polo to move, but not in any meaningful way. The entry-level 1.0-litre Polo has just 48kW of power and 95Nm of torque, which explains away the 15.5-second ‘sprint’ to 100km/h, but doesn’t suggest why that might be slower than its predecessor.

The stronger of the two atmo three-pots has 55kW and the same 95Nm of torque (its power peak is higher than the 48kW car) and oozes through to 100km/h in 14.9 seconds. No, not spritely.

Then there’s the 70kW/175Nm turbocharged version of the same 999cc engine, which pulls the 0-100km/h time down to a more reasonable 10.8 seconds and rips a full 6.5 seconds off the fourth-gear burst from 80-120km/h.

And it’s a good, strong, smooth engine. It fits right in to the new Polo’s mind-boggling levels of sophistication and maturity, without losing the vocal character of the warbling three-cylinder layout.

It’s immediately unmistakable for its maturity, firing up evenly, cleanly and Volkswagen has done a remarkable job of isolating its inherent vibrations from the cabin and the driver’s seats.

It’s a lot stronger than the paperwork suggests, too, with our urban-heavy drive program showing the Polo could comfortably pace city traffic, pull strongly away from lights, punch into small traffic gaps and do it all with ease.

While the poverty pack Polos only use five-speed manual gearboxes, the turbo 70kW version comes with either the stick shifter or a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission.

Oddly, with more gears to spread the workload, the DSG car posts the same acceleration figures and its fuel consumption rises mildly from 4.4L/100km to 4.6 (or from 101g/km of CO2 to 105). That’s almost certainly down to its beltline burgeoning from 1145kg to 1180kg.

Interestingly, it reaches up to 187km/h – the exact same top speed as the original Golf GTi. We didn’t have enough unlimited autobahn to hit those lofty heights (for a three-cylinder engine), but we climbed beyond 160 easily enough and the car was rock solid, stable and comfortable.

We managed to eke a couple of clunky shift actions from the DSG, but only in concert with the restart of the engine’s standard idle-stop system. Otherwise, it’s smooth, efficient and barely noticeable.

The cheaper manual gearbox is a nice, natural thing to use, too, though its throws are longer and the gates farther apart than in, say, a Mazda2.

There are other engines coming and we also managed some seat time in the 85kW version of this same turbocharged three-cylinder motor, plus the 70kW turbo-diesel that punches mightily, but is an engine technology on its last legs.

It’s still smooth (so is the 85kW petrol car) and it’s far stronger for in-gear acceleration than the petrol cars, but it’s also more expensive and it’s a fuel that, for city-focused cars, is increasingly becoming frowned upon.

Above that there is the new 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine, with cylinder-on-demand and a raft of other high-tech (and expensive) stuff for 110kW, then there’s the 2.0-litre Polo GTi with 147kW.

Smooth operator
But it’s the chassis that’s taken the big step forward. Volkswagen claims its torsional rigidity has climbed from 14,000Nm/degree to more than 18,000, plus it runs a four-link rear suspension and it even has adjustable dampers as an option.

It sure helps the ride quality that giant wheels and tyres aren’t anywhere near the Polo. Even the top-end Highline spec still runs a 15-inch wheel with a 185/65 tyre package.

It doesn’t matter that you know this is coming from the same MQB that is so impressive beneath the Golf and the Arteon and Tiguan and Passat. It’s so good as a ride package on rough city streets that you can only really sit back in near astonishment.

Its cabin noise levels are shockingly low for a C-segment car, much less an A0 car, and it’s just so composed in everything it does, over anything it hits.

That’s not even fair, because it doesn’t feel like it hits things. Rather, it seems to absorb and ooze its way over things, doing its very best not to upset anybody in the cabin for any reason.

Its steering is a bit lifeless, but it’s neatly accurate and fast enough for rapid, city work and comfortable on highways, and the brakes are strong and the driving position is near perfect.

But whatever else you take away from the Polo will fall away into relative insignificance when, finally, you notice the things that should be happening beneath you on typical roads, but aren’t.

For us – but probably not its target market -- it wouldn’t matter what levels of connectivity Volkswagen put into the Polo, because it rides like no other small car out there.

2018 Volkswagen Polo pricing and specifications:
Price: TBC
On sale: March 2018
Engine: 1.0-litre three-cylinder turbo-petrol
Output: 70kW/175Nm
Transmission: Five-speed manual, seven-speed dual-clutch
Fuel: 4.4L/100km
CO2: 101g/km
Safety rating: TBC