Life on top
BECOMING the benchmark is tough, but remaining so is even tougher. Whether in sport or business, once you’re top of the pile a large target is painted on your back and everyone ups their game in response.
The Volkswagen Golf has regularly adopted this mantle throughout its 47-year history. While it hasn’t always been top of the class, it’s fair to say that any car that bests it – the original Ford Focus, for instance – is usually very special indeed.
The problem for the competition is that, like Porsche and its 911, Volkswagen has an extremely close understanding of what makes the Golf successful and how to improve it, which it tends to do with each successive generation.
Since 2003 it’s been on a roll. The Mk5 took its predecessor’s improved quality and upmarket positioning and added handling nous, while the subsequent Mk6 and Mk7 – COTY winners both – have only further refined the concept. Now the eighth chapter is here.
And an intriguing chapter it is. In some ways the Golf is yesterday’s news. VW is investing tens of billions of dollars in electrification and leading the thrust is the ID3. Just as the Golf usurped the Beetle, so too the ID3 is intended to carryVolkswagen into a new era. Does that mean this latest Golf hasn’t been lavished with the same care and attention as its predecessors?
To help answer this question we’ve gathered two of its main rivals. The Mazda 3 is the Golf’s current nemesis having pipped the Mk7.5 the last time we ran a comparo and it’s joined by the freshly updated Hyundai i30. Full disclosure: this was meant to be a four-way but the Toyota Corolla could not attend at the last minute.
Its absence is excusable, however, as
