Five years after the launch of its fifth-generation supermini, Volkswagen is giving the Polo a shot of Botox. The modest face lift includes a new lower front fascia, new headlights, more options, and an upgraded engine portfolio.
Outside, the face-lifted Polo is most easily identified by its new front bumper, which is more open than before, and its new headlights (full-LED units are optional). Changes to the rear of the car are even subtler and are limited to a new shape for hanging license plates from and integrated reflectors. The same is true of the interior. Volkswagen is changing the steering-wheel design, and the instruments and HVAC controls have been ever so subtly rearranged.
The Polo has long been at the top of its class, and the updated model underscores this positioning by offering a list of optional high-tech equipment that should make many larger cars blush. Not only are full-LED headlights available, but so too are radar-based cruise control and a collision-mitigation system. Electronically adjustable dampers are offered as well.
There are also significant changes under the hood. The 1.2- and 1.6-liter TDI engines make room for a new 1.4, which is offered in strengths of 75, 90, and 105 horsepower. The most economical version, the BlueMotion TDI, is rated at an excellent 73.5 mpg in the sugar-plumb European cycle.
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The Polo also comes with several new gasoline engines, including a naturally aspirated 1.0-liter three-cylinder with available tunes of 60 or 75 horsepower, as well as a turbocharged version that ups output to 90 horses in the BlueMotion TSI. The BlueGT come online later this year, with its 1.4-liter four-cylinder upped by 10 horses to 150, and the Polo GTI will follow sometime after with a power bump of 12 horsepower to 192.
Again, Volkswagen has no plans to offer the Polo is the U.S. And we continue to curse that decision vehemently.
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/nSHy27
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