Volkswagen Golf 1.5 TSI 130 Life 2020 UK first drive

The eighth-generation of Volkswagen’s market-leading, class-defining family hatchback is perhaps more usefully thought of not so much as a new Volkswagen Golf as a different one. This car may use an updated version of the same model platform and chassis as the seventh-generation car; it may be pretty much the same size; and it may also use reworked versions of many of the same engines and gearboxes. But don’t be fooled by that stuff.

The Golf has changed, subtly but noticeably. It’s a car that suggests Wolfsburg has realised, underneath the familiar media messaging, that ‘progressive’ understated design and product positioning will no longer allow this car to sit at the epicentre of the European car market, and to top the continent’s annual sales volume statistics, in quite the way it has for decades.

In its exterior design, interior layout and in the way it drives, this is a Golf that risks more; that puts more of itself out there to be perceived, commented on, and liked or otherwise. This is the Golf of our social-media-obsessed, Youtube-selfie-stick-broadcast times, after all - and that’s beginning to show.

When was the last time there was a new Golf that you might actually notice on the road? I’d say this one represents a greater styling departure than any since the mk iV or V; and given the grand redefinition its maker is currently going through, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. The car’s still so recognisably ‘Golf’ in profile, but the rear end looks a lot more chiselled; meanwhile, the car’s ‘face’ really has reached for the new. The cutesy oversized lights and chunky grille of those noughties-generation cars have been replaced by slim features and a wide, mean stare which, at first, doesn’t look very ‘Volkswagen’ at all. Let’s see how long it takes to get used to it.

A largely familiar choice on engines is being presented to UK-resident Golf buyers for the moment, with petrol options ranging upwards from a 108bhp 1.0-litre TSI three-cylinder turbo, though several 1.5-litre TSI four-cylinder turbos each subtly different from the next, and also 2.0-litre TDI diesels in 113- and 148bhp tunes. VW has added 48-volt mild-hybrid technology to the car’s propulsive armoury, although for now only one model gets it: the upper-level 1.5-litre, 148bhp, DSG-gearbox-equipped ‘eTSI’. 

In time, UK plug-in hybrid buyers will be offered a new 241bhp Golf GTE model, while replacements for the GTI, GTI TCR, GTD and R will also come. Having tried the car in higher-end form earlier on the continent, and with all-independent suspension, adaptive dampers and progressive steering, our first right-hand drive test car was a Golf in lower-end Life trim with 16in wheels, passive suspension, a torsion beam rear axle and a 129bhp 1.5-litre TSI engine.

What, then, are Volkswagen’s more traditional clientele going to make of this car’s ‘digitised’ cabin layout, with its obvious disdain for easily-grabbed knobs and buttons, and its all-digital instrument cluster? You’ll forgive me for dwelling on this question, but cockpit layout is one of this Golf’s ‘big differentiators’. And shock horror, digital and touch-sensitive as this interior mostly is, I like it.

It’s not as if you need to go through the touchscreen for every process from opening the sunroof to turning down the heater, like on a Tesla; usability has evidently been carefully considered.. Permanent capacitive controls stand in for regular switches for climate control temperature and audio system volume, and they work well. For the latter you can simply swipe your finger along a touch-sensitive strip to adjust the level, rather than jabbing away at a ‘zone’.