What's a VW Golf doing on Indian Autos Blog, you might ask, and the simple yet shocking answer is the next gen Golf (pictured above) will be manufactured in VW’s state of the art facility at Chakan. Yes, it will be present in the premium hatchback segment, giving company to Skoda's Fabia and Chevrolet's SRV, but not until 2010.
We already know that VW hit the panic button back in 2006-2007 to bring the all new Mk6 Golf from 2011 to 2009. The main reason was the heavy competition faced by the Golf which hit sales and the Golf was one of the models requiring the largest amount of time to be produced. The stats from 2007 say that an average family hatchback needed only 6-8 hours for the final car to roll of the assembly line while it took 16-20 hours to roll a Golf off the production line !
Looking at the spy shots, it is clearly evident that VW has followed the trendy lines of the Scirocco coupe. The styling is slightly evolutionary from the earlier Golf taking cues from the Scirocco. The car is slightly on the conservative side to appeal to the mass market. Most striking features are the Scirocco type head lamps and the Touareg style tail lamps. Compared to the front, the read looks bland.
Under the surface the new Golf sticks to the same mechanical package as the outgoing car, and will be offered with much of the same range of ultra-modern petrol and diesel motors. Engines will be more fuel efficient, with a super-frugal ‘Bluemotion’ version likely to be offered from launch.
Volkswagen also appears to have taken on board criticism of some of the previous Golf’s cabin materials, with the new car’s interior getting more soft-touch plastics and sharing switchgear and instruments with the Scirocco. Satnav has also been upgraded to VW’s latest touch-screen system.
What is of interest of India is the fact that the next gen Golf will be produced out of VW's state of the art facility at Chakan. It will be present in the premium hatchback segment,but this wont happen until 2010. So keep your fingers crossed.
The Golf has long been Volkswagen’s most successful car, with the current version still topping the European sales charts. That explains the subtle nature of the visual transformation – but will it be enough to persuade buyers that this is an all-new car? I reckon it surely will.
