21 Jan 04
Press officers are, obviously, paid to present their company's products in the best possible light. It might even be said that they are paid to plant the germs of positive thought. As in "you'll probably notice how stylish the aluminium trim on the doors is." Or "a journalist of your experience will enjoy the outstanding on-the-limit handling." All in the hope that such a glowing tribute might possibly find its way into a published road test. Which is why there was a cynical silence when VW's UK PR boss explained that within 50 yards of our drive we would all notice the positive effects that an 80 percent improvement in torsional rigidity had wrought on the new Golf. He was wrong. It was more like 20 yards.
Rolling over the broken surfaces of a Hampshire B-road, the new Golf didn't allow the slightest tremor, rattle or squeak to intrude on the funereal silence in the cabin. The extremely strong structure revealed itself in the car's fine ride quality and precisely responsive handling characteristics, too. Driven on our roads in right-hand drive form for the first time, the even more spacious and refined new Golf has lived up to the promise of its original left-hand drive road test - it is unquestionably a five-star car.
As we have already discovered, the 140bhp 2.0 TDI turbodiesel is a fine match for the new Golf. That's particularly good news for Volkswagen in the UK as diesel power continues to make big inroads into the market. In fact, VW reckons that diesel-powered models will account for more than 55 percent of all Golf sales annually, and of those, 28 percent will go to the excellent 140bhp 2.0 TDI. This a responsive engine with very strong mid-range pulling performance - so much so that the six-speed gearbox feels like overkill. For the record, VW reckons that it'll shift 55,000 Golfs a year in the UK and two thirds of those will be five-door models.
