Category: Small Family 
Price Range: £11,945 to £20,460
Quality cabin, refined diesel engines.
Uninspiring styling, not hugely entertaining to drive.
It's a Golf 5.5 rather than a Mk6, but the new ultra-refined diesel engines and improved cabin quality still make this a very impressive hatchback.
It's hard to believe that the Volkswagen Golf has been around for 34 years and each time a new version of this popular hatchback is unveiled, a new benchmark is set. That steady and almost predictable progression means success: since its introduction in 1974, 26 million Golfs have been sold worldwide.
Take a look at the previous generations and you see dramatic changes as each one is introduced. But this one's a little different in that... it's not much different. Give the new car a cursory glance and you'd be forgiven for thinking it's the Mk5.
Officially it's the Mk6 Golf, but really it's a Mk5.5. Even the pricing has remained static - £13,000 or the S trim rising to £21,000 for the five-door GT models. There are three trim levels: S, SE and GT. Underneath, the Mk6 Golf uses the same platform as the Mk5 but there are, in fact, enough revisions on this car to justify the tag 'new Golf'. All the body panels, bar the roof, have been changed and 60% of the parts are new.
Two new common rail diesel engines have been introduced and the suspension has been tweaked to make it stiffer. There's also an improved ESP system.
Uprated suspension and enhanced safety systems are hardly headline-grabbers and, if you wanted, you could accuse VW of playing it too safe.
So is the Golf just another ordinary-looking German hatch, or is there more to it than meets the eye?
Latest Readers' Drives About the Volkswagen Golf
wrote on 20 06 2007
wrote on 14 10 2006
wrote on 06 06 2006