What is it?
The Volkswagen Up is a brilliant city car but until now it’s had some pretty weedy engine options. The 59bhp and 74bhp 1.0-litre variants are economical enough, but take the former out of the city and it's like a fish out of water, being too weak to cope comfortably either with regular motorway drives or B-road overtakes. Even the higher-powered version struggles over hilly terrain. The Up is a fun little car to drive, though, and has been crying out for a more powerful engine, so VW has obliged with the car’s facelift.
With a hot Up GTI in the pipeline, VW has whetted our appetites by introducing a turbocharged 1.0-litre unit, raising its power output to 89bhp and, maybe more significantly, boosting peak torque by 48lb ft to 118lb ft. More power on this lightweight city car means its 0-62mph time is now 9.9sec - more than three whole seconds faster than the 74bhp version.
The engine is available with a manual or automatic transmission, with the car in either three or five-door form and in High Up or Beats trim, and although the powerplant sits at the top of the range, it doesn’t command much of a premium over the 74bhp unit.
We have previously driven it abroad, but here we're in the UK, sampling a five-door High Up fitted with a five-speed manual gearbox to see if this combination can improve on a winning formula.
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Basic GTI
I've said this before & I'm
KenF wrote:
I doubt whether they'll read this so have you directed your concerns directly? Perhaps they will look at changing their production process just for you. Or you could, if you're serious about buying one, buy the 60ps version an buy a couple of hundred pound plugin chip to boost power.
Buying the 60ps version and
KenF wrote:
Only if you tell anyone. They can be installed/removed in minutes.
Say it about other cars as well then
For the same reason you can't buy any basic model car with a higher performing engine. Try buying a Polo S with 1.8 tfsi engine in. It's the Business model
KenF wrote:
Probably because very few people buy the base model, it is there just to bring people to the showrooms, and then upsell them the next model or two up. Why then create the extra hassle in the supply chain for a car that most people will ignore?