Volkswagen Golf Cabrio review (25/04/2012)
Some cabrios tick all the right boxes, but many others do not measure up in driving capability and this week’s test car is one of them.
The car is the new VW Golf Cabrio and I am surprised VW made it at all.
Though the car was made in various guises between 1979 and 2002 (and they sold 700,000 of them), it was dropped in favour of the Beetle Cabrio in 2003 and the excellent Eos in 2006.
The Eos was interesting in that it was in the vanguard of the
metal-roofed convertibles that came to the fore in the middle of the Noughties. Everyone jumped on that bandwagon and these machines were popular.
But VW have taken a step back in time with the new Golf Cabrio, which is a more traditional convertible than we have become used to in
recent years.
The new car is a return to days of yore, but not necessarily a good one.
There are those who pooh-poohed the complex, expensive and weighty metal-roofed generation of cabriolets because they were just that: complex, expensive and weighty.
However, for anyone who enjoys driving, these machines offered a cabrio experience like few previous. The cars handled well and enjoyed a degree of torsional rigidity unheard of in the old days.
The older ‘cloth-capped’ brigade invariably had as much body control as your average rubber band, but in this case VW claim that the Golf Cabrio has class-leading torsional rigidity and says that because of its design, their car is less compromised by having a cloth roof rather than a metal one.
Despite this car having the same suspension arrangement as a regular Golf, I found it to be unbearable to drive, especially on some of our more testing roads.
We know the regular Golf’s suspension to be excellent, but in this case I found it to be so compromised that it could not perform to any degree of normality.
It might be fine on the Cote d’Azur, but it doesn’t cut the mustard over here.
In fairness, on a good surface there is not any discernible difference between the Golf Cabrio and the standard version, in terms of its handling and ride, but put it on anything other than a billiard-table surface and immediately you can tell that you, and your passengers, are not going to enjoy the experience.
And I am not sure that the sports-suspension package, as fitted to the test car, was a good idea either. Such packages tend to stiffen the suspension to provide better turn-in and road-holding, but in this case, where things are jittery at best, they are made even more unpredictable.
The net result is that the Golf Cabrio is best driven at a moderate pace, because, otherwise, you will find yourself fighting a losing battle.
In this regard, it is worth noting that the 77kW (105bhp), 1.6-litre turbodiesel is only a moderate performer, pushing the car to the 100kph mark from a standstill in 12.2 seconds.
True, the car provides excellent consumption levels at 4.4 l/100km and fits into tax band A, but I’m afraid that even these plus points were considerably outweighed by the car’s on-road deficiencies.
Standard kit is good, what with cruise control, front and rear electric windows, ‘climatic’ air conditioning, ESP and an eight-speaker sound system.
The tester had an extra 6,000 worth of goodies such as the aforementioned sports suspension, 18” alloys, leather upholstery, bi-xenon lights and a multifunction steering wheel. But all that did little for me in the greater scheme of things.
Practicality, of course, is not a major character strength in any rag top and the Golf is no different.
The boot space is piffling and access and egress to the rear seats is good only if you’re under the age of 10.
There will, of course, be a certain demographic for whom the Golf Cabrio is an ideal machine and for whom the inherent good looks — the rakish A-Pillar gives the car a much more sporty look than is the case with the hatchback — make this a very appealing purchase.
But not for me, I’m sad to say. I hated the thing.
