Published:
7 August 2018Despite the Polo GTI’s impressive on-paper performance credentials, it’s not really the sort of car to shout about its sporting abilities on a visual front.
As with the hot supermini’s exterior, the approach VW’s designers have taken to its cabin errs on the side of conservatism. In fact, it’s largely similar to that of a regular, yet generously equipped, standard Volkswagen Polo.
The ‘Jacara’ upholstery, sports seats and GTI badging are about the only thing that set this hotter, faster Polo aside from the cooking models. The Velvet Red dash panel injects some much-needed colour into the mix, too, although it’s worth noting that this is an option on regular Polos as well, albeit in different colours.
Our test car was equipped with Volkswagen’s £650 Discover Navigation infotainment system, which uses an 8.0in touchscreen in place of the same-sized Composition Media set-up that comes as standard.
Its various menus and icons are effortlessly intuitive to negotiate and, along with very low latency, make this the best infotainment system in this class. That VW has not sought to do away with scrolling dials (there is one each side of the display for volume, scrolling and map scale) is also a big tick as far as we’re concerned.
Discover Navigation comes with a three-year subscription to ‘Guide and Inform’, which not only provides information on fuel prices and weather but allows the navigation to plot a course based on real-time traffic updates.
