VW Polo 1.6 Manual

The new Polo

Not very long ago at all I did the road test on the 1.4L Polo, read the road test in the April edition of Drive in fact, but to summarise I had many good things to say about it. To be honest there was actually very little at all that I could find fault with, except for on thing. The VW Polo has just recently been awarded motoring’s most illustrious title, that of World Car of the Year. And whilst I have immense respect for the 1.4L, it lacked that special something, it’s just very good in every department, but lacks the spark needed to truly call it the best car in the world. Now however, I understand, the 1.6 has spark.

The Polo 1.6 for me is the car that rounds off the Polo range, the motor livens up the chassis and platform as a whole to the extend that I can now see just why the international motoring press believes the Polo to be the best overall car range in the world. Thanks to its short throw manual gearbox, the driving experience is a visceral one that almost makes you feel like you’re in a baby Golf GTI, praise doesn’t come much higher than that, from me at least.

I’m not going to say for an instant that the Polo 1.6 is anywhere near as capable as a Golf GTI, what with the Golf’s 155kW 2.0L motor and wildly versatile XDS electronic diff the Polo simply can’t touch that sort of performance, but it just feels like it. And feeling, quite frankly, is all important. The 1.6 can actually only manage 77kW and 155Nm of torque so Golf GTI performance is definitely out of the question, but we’re talking a volume seller here.

VW Polo 1.6

On my first drive home I found myself doing something I virtually never do when testing cars of the volume seller segment. You know when you throttle off and let the guy in front of you get a good distance ahead, and then pay close attention to the lights and try and time it so not only do you hit the red, but are hopefully at the front thanks to the prodigious following distance as well. Now you’re at the front waiting for green, open road in front of you, you’re at a standstill so for a short while at least there’s no concern for speed limits, only a few seconds on from green but I’ll take it. Build the revs as you see the cross traffic light go yellow and then red, once you have green and the obligatory three cars have jumped the red of course, dump the clutch and bury the throttle. Rinse, repeat, all the way home. And what makes this fun in the Polo is the fantastic throaty growl from the 1.6 from high 2000’s all the way up to 5000 odd revs, it gets a bit whiny beyond that and has quite a hard limiter at 6000 in first as well, but still marvelous all in all. Combine the growl with a beefy level of grunt for a 1.6, a first class gearbox and you have a recipe for fun, which in a Polo is surprising indeed.

Playing this little game isn’t the only way to reveal some of the Polo’s more commendable traits, the twisty bits are handled with aplomb too as the Polo has very responsive and direct steering. Sure it’ll understeer a bit at times but then what FWD car doesn’t, and as the Polo doesn’t benefit from the level of traction provided by the Golf GTI’s XDS diff it’s not surprising. I must admit I haven’t done any high speed stuff in the Polo, no open roads you see, so this glowing opinion could completely switch around after a while. You never quite know how a car handles speed until you try after all. And I’ve actually only been impressed with the Polo’s first three gears, beyond those the economy ratios kick in somewhat and dull the experience. The power band too isn’t the widest, you do need to ring the neck of the Polo somewhat before you can access all your available horses, but isn’t too much of a problem.

VW Polo interior

The Polo 1.6 manual really is the Polo to go for it seems, as the more powerful engine livens up the Polo platform, but don’t think that to achieve this VW have compromised on the critical areas for a volume seller. It’s still economical, even with vigorous use of the throttle, it’s comfortable and even quite aggressively priced. Although it must be said as with all VW’s the options list is a scary thing, especially when considering the relative lack of standard equipment. Even loaded with options though it’s well priced I think, and for the fun factor on offer well worth it.

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