Volkswagen Up! 2016 Review

Volkswagen Up! TSI hatch    
First Drive
Como, Italy

Turbo power finally comes to Volkswagen's smallest car and diesel, and all the lies and baggage that comes with it, thankfully stays away. For all that, it’s the colour and trim upgrades, plus the phone-integration systems that are the key to making the Up finally seem like demonstrably better value than the same brand’s slightly larger Polo in Europe, much less Asian offerings. But it’s still not coming Down Under, at least officially.

After offending just about everybody with its Dieselgate disaster, Volkswagen is walking a fine line with the upgraded Up, a city hatch that almost certainly won’t come here.

Essentially, it has a whole bunch of interior, colour and trim upgrades for the aesthetes and the Up’s first ever turbo motor for the petrolheads, with smartphone integration taking care of navigation and the tunes for everybody else.

The Up is the only mainstream Volkswagen model not to be affected by one diesel crisis or another, for the very simple reason that you couldn’t buy it with a diesel engine, and you still can’t. This isn’t because of any nobility or thoughts of badge purity, though. It’s the same reason the smart forfour doesn’t have diesels: the rest of the car is so expensively engineered that a diesel Up would cost more than a petrol Polo.

So its family begins with a humble 44kW petrol-powered three-cylinder motor and it uses old-school multi-point direct fuel injection, rather than the direct-injection systems from more expensive machinery. Still, its efforts are only divided amongst three cylinders, not four or six or even eight. Just three!

The entry Up only comes with a five-speed manual gearbox and it takes 14.4sec to reach 100km/h, so the traditional word “sprint” isn’t applicable here. It is so slovenly that Volkswagen even quotes a very rare 0-80km/h figure (9.1sec incidentally), though that means even trainee mathematicians can figure out it takes 5.3sec to run from 80 to 100km/h. It also takes 18.5 seconds to accelerate from 80 to 120km/h, so the last 20km/h of that takes circa 4.1sec to accumulate (there’s a gear change between 80-100km/h that adds some time).

The interest is all up the other end of the family, though, with the first turbocharged motor in the Up’s short history feeding it 66kW and 160Nm to pull its 0-100km/h acceleration time to a tenth under ten seconds.

Still a three-cylinder engine, the TSI engine mates only to a five-speed manual gearbox. The mid-spec 44kW and 55kW BlueMotion Ups also have a sequential automated manual box as an option, but it’s not available on the big boy. There’s also a 50kW version of the engine, powered purely by natural gas.

All of the Ups weigh less than 1000kg, but they’re not as fuel efficient as you’d imagine, largely because the modern car industry has accustomed us to seeing the headlines grabbed by diesel-powered figures or hybrid models, neither of which live in the Up family.

Still, there’s the all-electric e-Up to keep things easy and clean.

Both the entry 44kW car and the TSI 66kW motor have an NEDC figure of 4.4L/100km and CO2 emissions of 101 grams/km, though the BlueMotion variants dive down to 4.1L/100km.

They’re physically a bit different from the original World Car of the Year-winning Up, with changes to the front and rear plastic meant to show that the car has grown up, grown wider, grown sportier and more fun. The bonnet gets new creases, just like an adult car, while there are new front and rear lights and daytime running lights are standard.

If the engines are simple things, the list of options is frankly dizzying. There are 13 colours now, plus 17 different alloy wheel options, 11 seat designs, 10 dash pads to choose from, three roof colours and the list goes on.

That largely explains why Volkswagen has bundled the key bits of this into packages to help people to, err, not make a mishmash of it all, and they include a roof pack, a design pack and a colour pack.

There’s also a new bit of smartphone integration with a purpose-designed cradle, so you no longer need satnav or a multimedia screen because it can all be done through the phone, on or off line, via a Bluetooth connection. Still, it worked pretty well last time around, and this seems like an option that’s forcing people to buy it.

They’ve hooked up with Beats to deliver a new optional sound system with seven speakers (including a boot-mounted subwoofer) that runs to 300W.

And there are more options than just interior trims. There is a long glass roof, climate control with both pollen and spore filters, there’s a rear-view camera and even the static cornering light is optional.

The easiest part for Volkswagen was upgrading the mechanicals and the package, both of which were excellent to begin with.

For city dwellers, particularly, the Up’s packaging has always made something of a mockery of its 3600mm overall length (3540mm for the two-door), largely because 2407mm of that was (and remains) between the axles. Effectively, it’s the same size as Fiat’s 500, but has bags more interior room courtesy of the longer wheelbase.

None of that has changed, but the surfaces have. Some of them, particularly on the dash, are an acquired taste, some of them leave you wondering how quickly you’d get bored with the fussiness and some of them just plain work. It’s the same with the seat trim and, as with the headphones, the Beats sound system is fantastic if what you love is your music full of bass and with all nuance, pitch and subtlety eviscerated.

Other than that, it’s a nice place to sit, especially by the standards of this category. There is a surprising amount of space in the back, the luggage area is handy and neat and practical and, indeed, will fit two carry-on roller bags with some aplomb.

The driving position remains excellent, with good vision for 360 degrees and solid ergonomics.

The star of the show is the new turbo engine. No, it won’t turn an Up into a sports car, but it will give it enough punch that it won’t be embarrassed anywhere and, for those that don’t love the charm of a gruff three-pot, the turbo muffles a bit of that character and quietens down the noise.

It has, for its size, strength in the bottom end of the rev range that makes it simple and even fun in traffic and it revs more cleanly than its naturally aspirated underlings.

The throttle response is pretty good and the engine note is charming, with the spinning turbo acting to cancel the outliers amongst the three-cylinder wobulations and it’s more sophisticated than the more junior models.

The handling, too, is a step forward. It’s not choppy and it’s close to the same level of calm and quiet as the Polo, but with a tighter turning circle that makes inner-city parks even easier to negotiate.

It is happy to be thrown into corners with over-enthusiasm and all it will do in return is to understeer a bit and lean hard on its springs and then grip and go.

The thing is, the Up is designed specifically to feel sophisticated in its ride and handling around town, and it does, but that doesn’t prevent it from feeling sophisticated in its ride and handling out on the open road, too.

It smooths over the rough stuff better than you’d outwardly give it credit for, it’s quiet and is little bothered by road or wind noise and it damps its springs beautifully after a big bumps strike.

It’s a quality car and feels like one. It’s priced like one, too, especially if it’s compared to the nearly identical Seat and Skoda siblings. But if it’s four seats, practicality and high quality you need in a city car, there’s this (and its siblings) and there’s daylight.

Is it enough for VW Australia to change its mind and reintroduce the Up to the local line-up?

Not while it continues to give away Polos we’d suggest…

2016 Volkswagen Up! TSI pricing and specifications:
Price: Probably not applicable
Engine: 1.0-litre, 12-valve in-line three, turbocharger, petrol
Output: 66kW/160Nm
Transmission: five-speed manual
Fuel: 4.4 litres/100km
CO2: 101 grams/km
Safety Rating: TBA
0-100km/h: 9.9 seconds
Top speed: 185km/h (limited)