Facelifted Golf gains much needed interior upgrades and new base four-cylinder engine – is it better than ever?
If success breeds complacency in the car business, one car above all others ought to bear it out: the Volkswagen Golf. And yet over nearly five decades, we’ve yet to see much more than a sniff of proof of it. In Volkswagen’s case, the standing of one of the industry’s quiet icons only gets greater and greater.Understanding the unique position the Golf occupies on this continent can only be done by appreciating the margin of its sales dominance. At one point, it was Europe’s biggest-selling new car by a country mile, topping the continent’s sales charts for 15 straight years, until the Peugeot 208 knocked it off the perch in 2022. When it was introduced in 2019, many thought the Mk8 Golf could be the boldest redefinition of Volkswagen’s enduring family five-door since the Mk5.It sported a modern, smart exterior with a newly hybridised powertrain armoury, sharpened ride and handling, a reductionist cabin design and market-leading active safety technology. This was a concerted effort by one of the world’s most powerful car makers to arrest the steady shrinking of the European mid-sized hatchback segment.Now, in 2024, the Golf has been treated to a facelift, marking the middle of the Mk8’s life – and it’s a clear sign of just how highly Volkswagen continues to value the combustion-engined Golf against a brace of more contemporary electric cars.Volkswagen Golf range at a glanceThe updated Golf range kicks off with choice of turbocharged 1.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engines, with 114bhp and 148bhp and the choice of mild-hybrid assistance.A reworked turbocharged 2.0-litre petrol engine also joins the range with an added 13bhp, at 201bhp, in the upgraded 2.0 TSI; and an added 20bhp, at 262bhp, in the hot Golf GTI, which is no longer available with a manual gearbox.
