New Polo GTI Review - Bigger engine, more fun

Hello , this is the brand new Polo G T I .

And let's get straight to the good news because it is now built in South Africa .

The new Polo is cheaper than the old polo , right ?

So , I suppose this is the part where I take it for a drive .

Right .

Let me take you through this new Polo G T I two liter engine 147 kilowatts , 320 Newton meters of torque .

Now , that compares fairly well to its big brother , the golf G T I which has 1 69 and three 50 and it is a little bit lighter than a golf G T I .

Not by as much as you would think , but only about 40 to 50 kg .

In fact , with a 0 to 100 time of 6.6 seconds , the Polo G T I is only 0.2 of a second slower than the golf G T I which makes this quite a quick little car and to help you through the corners , Volkswagen have come up with something called an X DS differential .

Now it's not a mechanical differential , but what it does is when you're cornering and the inside wheel is starting to lift and lose a little bit of traction .

It transfers the torque and power to the outside wheel , which has got all the grip at that point .

And that means that this car has tons of mechanical grip .

And if things aren't stiff enough for you for an extra 5000 rand , you get active damper control .

So , pushing this little button here , we put it in sport mode and everything stiffens up and you can really feel it .

That is a properly worthwhile extra .

That , oh , there we go .

Right .

Let's start with the key .

Now , unfortunately , it doesn't say G T I on it , which I think is a little bit of a pity .

It does have a traditional flip up key though , but it doesn't actually go anywhere because this is keyless and the start button is down here next to the gear knob .

Now , the first thing you might notice in the interior is the beautiful red Facia on the dash .

You get to pick the color if you want .

But if you want a red area paint , you can't have a red Facia , which seems a little strange , keen eyed viewers also might notice that Volkswagen have gone back to a volume knob up here on the navigation system .

I way prefer that to the fiddly sort of touch buttons .

The steering wheel is a real highlight , beautiful red stitching with a G T I logo down here and looking through the steering wheel at the active info display , which keep in mind is a 9000 optional extra that looks particularly good .

The software , the look and feel is actually unique to the Polo G T I .

Now Volkswagen have thrown in a couple of standard features , but keep in mind , you will have to pay for some nice things like the sun roof for instance , which is about 10,000 rand , but they have thrown in some curtain airbags which go all the way to the rear passengers and two USB ports .

Very generous .

Now , the next question we have to answer .

Does it put apart ?

Yeah , that kind of was a I think , try again .

5000 R PM .

5.5 turned up .

Uh It's more of a mm yeah , it's more of a a but , but let me take you a little bit more through how this car handles .

So we spoke about that trick diff earlier the fact that it can handle one G through the corners and here we are turn to at Kalani all the way down to second gear .

Let's nail the throttle on the exit deals with the atmosphere really well .

Run the car out wide .

That's very good .

You can get on the throttle early , just stay on down to the sweeping turn three a bit bumpy through there .

Run the car out wide .

This car is very easy to place the nose is very easy to place .

And let's try the lift off over here , here through the double apex , turn four , lift off .

Oh , that's good .

Very progressive .

You can catch that really nicely .

Doesn't sort of surprise you .

It doesn't try to bite you .

This is a fun little car .

Oh , I'm enjoying this , ah , changed for me .

I didn't ask you to change Polo stop it .

I'm driving here as fun as this car is .

It still feels like Volkswagen is playing it safe with the Polo G T I .

We think this chassis could handle quite a bit more power and that Volkswagen may have left space in the lineup for a hotter Polo .

He's hoping for a polo club sport .

Come on Volkswagen .

You know , you want to .

Now , of course , it's always amazing to drive a super car , a mclaren like we drove recently or a Porsche or Ferrari .

They're incredible .

They're always going to be incredible .

But the reality is that those cars are so competent .

They offer so much grip that to take it to the limit , to take it to the edge of its capabilities is almost insane .

You can't do it on public roads , that's for sure .

And when you do get to the edge of its limits , you're going to be doing about 280 kilometers an hour at which point you will have a massive accident and almost certainly die .

Whereas when you get in a car like a Polo G T I , you can just dance around its limits .

You can take it to the edge of what it can do really safely actually , especially in an environment like this .

And that's where you really enjoy a car .

That's where you really enjoy driving .

And that's what this car should be all about .

It should be about having fun and I'm so happy to report that it is .

Ok , one more .

Now we gonna do one more .

One more .

Everyone .

I just wanna do one more .

Hey , thanks for watching .

If you enjoyed that , you know , maybe , maybe give it a like and uh definitely subscribe to be the first to see our videos as they drop .

Uh Yeah , definitely do that .