First look Volkswagen Polo

Unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show this week, the newest member of the VW family is safer, lighter and has a range of new, more economical petrol and diesel engines.

In Europe five new engines are available, two using VW’s TSI petrol technology, joined by three of the latest common rail TDI engines.

All will be available with manual and dual clutch gearboxes.

With fuel economy of 3.8 litres/100km and 96g/km C02 for the 66kW 1.6-litre TDI BlueMotion model, the Polo now sets a benchmark for five-seaters.

Polo was specifically designed to attain the recently established, stricter and more comprehensive, 5-star EuroNCAP rating.

The car has a stiffer bodyshell and in the footwell area alone, intrusion – related to the car body’s deformation strength in a frontal crash – was lowered by 50 per cent.

In the case of a side impact, the intrusion value was reduced by 20 percent.

Euro Polos will come with standard ESP with Hill Hold Control, as well as front airbags and combined side head-thorax airbags integrated in the front seatbacks, seatbelt tensioners and belt force limiters, active front headrests.

VW has also managed to reduce the Polo’s weight by 7.5 per cent and fuel consumption has improved across the board thanks to TDI and TSI technology.

The new 1.2 TSI turbo-charged four-cylinder direct injection petrol engine produces 77 kW, yet it consumes just 5.5 litres/100 kilometres, 19 per cent less than on the equivalent model of the previous generation.

In total, seven different engines will be available in Europe, four petrol and three diesel.

The new Polo is expected to go on sale here early next year.

Volkswagen Australia spokesman, Karl Gehling, said more information and prices will be available closer to launch.

VW Australia is also looking at adding the BlueMotion cars to the lineup.