standard wheels with Andrew Muzamhindo
A fashionista is a person fanatical about fashionable clothing, particularly unique or high-end fashion. If you want to impress an unimpressionable fashionista colleague, this is the car with which to do it.
The Volkswagen Polo GTI is a high-tech hot hatch.
It is loaded with features that have no match in its class. It drives like a weapon of war because of its turbocharged muscles. You can whip it through massifs and in the metropolitan without any glitches.
The 2.0-litre turbo-petrol EA888 engine transplanted from the Golf GTI makes the Polo GTI great. So does its copious, almost class-leading boot space or ample rear seat space, the 15mm lower suspension, the big wheels, the sports body kit, or the gargle-blaster exhaust note.
However, the tartan upholstery interior makes it the greatest.
With its white, red and black seat patterning, this car just whiffs of coolness. The Polo GTI is modest and captivating in some ways with its high-tech armoury. It has got more swagger than Jay-Z and TI featuring MIA. Today’s youths would say it’s got “swagger for days”.
Where most rivals will just add red stitching to the seats, or perhaps a smattering of ersatz cow-hide, the pernicious Polo looks pilfers not only the engine from its bigger brother the Golf GTI, but also the coolest seat upholstery you can get from the factory.
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After settling into the sporty tartan seats, the view is contemporary. Compared to most rivals in the compact car space, it’s like leaving a dull and dated 1970s brick single bedroom unit and stepping inside a bold, vivacious, architecturally designed townhouse — complete with electrically-powered retracting bamboo chopping board.
The virtual cockpit borrowed from Audi displays the usual stuff on a high-definition 10.2-inch screen, such as road speed and engine rev dials and fuel consumption. Flick a button, however, and you get maps and sat nav and it looks dazzling! Being front and on the centre it’s easier to follow just by a glance.
The Polo GTI has an ability to be smooth and quiet whilst you drive to and from work in the city, but do not mistake the “manimal” underneath the hood waiting to explode.
The challenge is trying to drive it with composure and carefully at all times, because it’s so easy to just drop the foot mallet and blast off down the road.
Despite pumping out 147kW at 6000rpm and 320Nm at 4400rpm, the car’s relatively low mass of 1285kg and responsive six-speed dual-clutch “DSG” transmission conspire to deliver a bouncy response. Resembling an atom bomb, this car explodes when you step on the gas
The exhaust knots are bold and beautiful too with a rumble-fart-pop between gearshifts that coerces the inner-adolescent to emerge. You drive it and you say to it please give me more!
Push it too hard with too much throttle and she’ll understeer gently, but for the most part it’s a neutral car that lets you focus on apexes, not inequities in engineering and chassis calibration.
The front differential lock does a decent job of ensuring power gets to the road effectively and while the steering isn’t the keenest or the most communicative in the hot hatch segment, it gets the job done reliably and predictably. Like Usain Bolt it’s not only about speed, but brakes too, the brakes are strong. They stop the speedy monster when required to.
The Polo GTI is almost too firm in sports mode, which is only really suitable on glassy smooth road surfaces.
Being a relatively small and light vehicle, fuel economy can be very good. This car may be hot and fiery on weekends, but it acts like a true professional in the week and can be a cheap-to-run daily ride. It has a 6.1L/100km fuel economy.
It comes with loads of kit, such as adaptive suspension, 17-inch alloy wheels, six-speed auto, leather steering wheel, and, of course, tartan cloth upholstery.
It has an electronic front diff lock, cruise control, sports body kit plus Apple CarPlay and Android auto. You get a decent six-speaker stereo with all the bluetooth and two USB ports.
Keyless entry and push-button ignition are standard — and there’s more LEDs than you throw a diode at. We’re talking daytime running lights, brake lights and interior lights.
Safety features include six airbags, a low tyre pressure warning system and autonomous emergency braking that operates at low and high-speeds. A car alarm and immobiliser is part of the package, as is stability control and anti-lock brakes.
The Polo GTI is the current king in its class, delivering the sort of thrust rare in cars of this size, like the premium cabin ambience. Most of all, it generates the kind of mid-corner grip that could inspire a bloke to take up freestyle rapping.
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