Volkswagen Golf SV

The Volkswagen Golf SV might look a bit boring from the outside, but as soon as you step inside the cabin of the car, you will genuinely be impressed with the way how mature and premium its interiors feel. In a typical Volkswagen fashion, the cabin of the Volkswagen Golf SV is finished in an all-black theme, with silver and chrome inserts here and there to enhance the premium appeal of the car even more.

The flat bottom three-spoke multi-functional steering wheel, as well as the sober looking instrument console with a small rectangular monochrome MID in between, is something which we have seen in other more affordable Volkswagens in the past. The center console here looks much broader than that of the Golf, with a large 9.2-inch rectangular touchscreen infotainment system taking the center stage, placed in between two vertically laid trapezoidal AC vents.

The entire upper housing of the center console, along with the co-passenger side layer of the dashboard is finished in a faux carbon-fibre textured theme. The lower portion of the center console is shaped in a rectangular theme, which is finished in a gloss black theme and gets controls for the automatic climate control. 

Thanks to the increase in height and width of the car, the Volkswagen Golf SV gets an increased sense of space over the standard Golf and boasts of good headroom, legroom and boot space equivalent to that of an MPV.

The Volkswagen Golf SV is essentially based on the Volkswagen Golf premium hatchback, which can be sensed in the way the former has retained many of the design cues of the latter. However, the Volkswagen Golf SV has been made to look subtly different from the standard Volkswagen Golf, with its tall boy stance and design revisions, especially towards the rear.

From the front, the Volkswagen Golf SV resembles much like the standard Volkswagen Golf, but there are some noteworthy visual changes here. The sleek and long front grille with three horizontal chrome slats as well as sweptback hexagonal headlamps look much similar to that in the standard Golf. The headlamps here do sport dual LED projectors along with daytime running LEDs on the outer boundaries of them. The front bumper looks sporty with the small trapezoidal housings for LED fog lamps as well as long air dam with a sleek chrome garnish across its width.

The side profile of the Volkswagen Golf SV makes it look like a minivan rather than a hatchback, with the car getting a tall boy stance, roof rails and rakish profile towards the front. The door-mounted rearview mirrors, as well as crisp character line flowing sideways through the door handles, do try to instill some amount of sportiness to the side profile of the car, though.

At the back, the Volkswagen Golf SV looks substantially different from that of the standard Golf, with the car getting a boxy layout for the rear hatch. The trapezoidal LED tail lamps, as well as slightly vertical rear windscreen, do have that MPV flavor in them, with the theme of low positioned license plate housing retained from the standard Golf.

With a solidly tuned Macpherson strut with anti-roll bars at the front and a multi-link setup with anti-roll bars at the rear, the Volkswagen Golf SV feels an agile car to drive despite the added height, thus keeping the body control well under control. The perfectly weighted steering setup retained from the Golf is something praiseworthy as well.

The source of power for the Volkswagen Golf SV is a 1.4-litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine, which here in the car gets paired to a 7-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox as standard. The engine channels the power to the front wheels and produces maximum power and torque outputs of 125 PS and 200 Nm respectively.

Being a premium Volkswagen hatchback, the Volkswagen Golf SV is equipped with essential safety features in the form of the front, side and curtain airbags, ABS with EBD and brake assist, electronic stability program, front and rear parking sensors, reverse camera, hill start assist and hill descent control.

With the added sense of space and at the same time retaining the sharp driving dynamics of the standard Golf hatchback, the Volkswagen Golf SV is one hugely practical hatchback and has the sense of desirability if you can live with that not so enthusiastic MPV like design in a hatchback.