New Golf is decent, but not very exciting

I have always admired Volkswagen. The backstory of a company emerging from the ashes of Hitler’s Germany with little more than a broken production line and a single product to become one of the world’s automotive powerhouses, as well as having a romantic element to it, underlined the tenacity and willpower of the post-war German people.

It also headlined the economic miracle forged by those hardy Teutonic souls who rebuilt their country from the ground up.

You could not but have the highest esteem for those people who — under the guidance of a British Army officer, Major Ivan Hirst — turned a bombed-out town and factory into one of the great centres of the worldwide car- making industry and a model of design creativity and engineering efficiency.