Specifications
Model:
Volkswagen Golf Estate 1.9 TDI SE.
Price:
£16 592 (range £14 347-£20 417).
Engine:
1896cc, four-cylinder, eight-valves turbodiesel producing 105bhp at 4000rpm and 250Nm at 1900rpm.
Transmission:
Five-speed gearbox, front-wheel drive.
Performance:
186km/h, 0-100km/h 12.2sec, 5.22 litres/100m.
Size matters, it seems. A large estate car with a prestigious badge is deemed to be desirable by those with the means to indulge their desire. Bring down the size and the perceived status of the badge a couple of notches, though, and estate cars lose their cool.
You're not going to flaunt an Astra estate or a Focus estate because you don't want people to think you sell photocopiers.
But shouldn't the connotations of life-mode still be the same, albeit on a smaller scale? Not nowadays, because the compact MPV has stolen that show. Something like a Scenic or a Zafira suggests its user has a more open-minded approach to life and favours an unconventionally-configured vehicle with which to realise it.
So, not so many people buy a compact estate any more. They're just not exciting enough.
Maybe, though, an MPV has become too obvious. Maybe a really good, modern estate car can do the family hold-all job if not better then at least in an interestingly different way. And maybe, if the estate version of the compact hatchback has a kudos-laden badge, it can bring credibility back to the category.
Does such a car exist?
There is one and it's the Volkswagen Golf estate you see here. The badge suggests a class-transcending, thoroughly engineered, logical quality of design that transcends mere fashion: VW's have long had an air of permanence about them. A VW can be seen where a Ford or Vauxhall would be snubbed, victims of a brand snobbery that has no logical basis but informs many a buyer's choice of car.
The Golf estate. Shouldn't it be a Jetta estate, wearing as it does the chrome-striped grille of the Golf's booted-sedan derivative? After all, the estate is even made in the same Mexican factory as the Jetta and in some markets is sold as exactly that. In the UK, however, the Golf name is much stronger and more recognisable.
The first Golf estate, based on the Mk.III hatchback, was breathtakingly unsexy in its styling. The second was cleaner, sharper and more covetable, looking a bit like a compressed version of the high-cred Passat estate of the time. And this one is almost handsome, with a racy line to its rear side windows and a nicely rising waistline.
Getting cheaper
Inside, load bay excepted, it's like any other mainstream Golf: straight, horizontal lines on the fascia, an air of understated quality, a surprising amount of hard plastic trim which you don't mind too much because it goes with the VW-is-functional thing that goes right back to the original Beetle.
This plastic is present in the current Golf because it helped make the cars cheaper, the previous model's plushness having eaten too far into profits. Today's Golf was meant to be the profitable one but now VW says that it, too, costs too much to make and the next one must be cheaper.
Can a family hatchback be transformed into a useful estate car? The Golf estate's tail is longer than that of the hatch and there's a properly useful load floor with a roller-blind luggage cover and, optionally, a folding floor. The rear bumper is slightly higher than the boot floor but the tail door opening is still deep enough for most purposes.
The rear-seat cushions fold forward and the backrests flop down into the spaces thus revealed to create an extended load floor that is genuinely low and flat.
Middle model
So this car works as an estate car. Does it work as a driving machine? That would be a welcome bonus because an estate car such as this is unlikely to have driving dynamics at the top of its buyers' priority lists.
The test car I'm driving has the middle, potentially best-selling, of the three available engines - an eight-valve, 1.9-litre turbodiesel with a middling 80kW (the others are a 1.6-litre petrol with 77kW and a two-litre, quad-valve turbodiesel with 105kW.)
I start the engine and am appalled. I haven't driven a new car with a diesel engine this gruff for some time; what with this and the Golf's shallow windscreen, it all feels rather old-fashioned, but it moves off keenly and effortlessly with five smoothly selectable gears to keep it at its optimum speed and I'm reminded of the first Golf TDI that I drove back in 1993 when direct-injection diesels were a new idea.
Back then, the engine was amazing for its combination of economy and extraordinary pull from low speed. It opened a new era in diesels and was the first to really compete with a petrol engine on pace while annihilating it on economy. Most good diesels are like that now, and are a lot more refined with it, but this Golf estate's engine is a nostalgic reminder of those pioneering days.
It's pretty much the same engine, apart from having 80kW and 250Nm of torque instead of 68kW and 200Nm.
It has more weight to pull, inevitably, but the result is a car as lively as its predecessor (and subjectively quicker than the figures suggest). The engine's thrum even becomes oddly endearing after a time. But that was going to happen only if the rest of the car proved an amenable companion, and it does.
Really good bit...
The Golf steers very smoothly, with just the right weighting to the steering's action, and the sophisticated suspension (a near-copy of the original Ford Focus's design) keeps the Golf estate tidy, responsive and fun to drive.
The really good bit, though, the part that has made me feel warm about this car, is the way it rides over bumps. I've driven so many new cars recently that thud, bang and jitter over our disintegrating roads that it's a joy to try one that doesn't. The wheels of this mid-level-trim (SE) Golf are quite hefty at 16" diameter and are shod with sporty 205/55 tyres but the Golf soaks up all kinds of road neglect with barely a complaint.
It seems the art of making a car ride well, of making it flow with the road rather than fight it, lives on at VW. Such a combination of smoothness, precision and correct control weightings is a pleasure to experience.
So that's the load-carrying Golf. A particularly easy, pleasing drive that also happens to be rather useful and surprising value against its Ford and Opel opposition. The problem with compact MPV's is that they either lean too much through bends because of their height or ride too lumpily because the suspension has been stiffened to stop the leaning.
Whatever, it's a compromise. There's no such compromise in the Golf. The compact, quality estate car. It could just catch on. - The Independent, London
The rivals
Ford Focus 1.6 TDCi 110 Zetec estate £17 212 (R244 000):
The Focus range has just had a subtle restyle outside and in, which means there may be discounts on pre-facelift cars. Good to drive; expensive for what it is.
Opel Astra 1.7 CDTi 100 Design estate £17 430 (R247 000):
It looks the flashiest but also costs the most among the rivals, which is hard to justify unless you can get a discount. Does everything adequately.