"What a small car," said the Assistant Editor when she saw the Golf Plus for the first time in the office car park. Fast forward three days. "What a large car," said a friend when he saw the Golf Plus for the first time in a school car park. What was going on?Simple answer. The Golf Plus is, indeed, quite large, being 95mm - or about four inches - taller than the standard Golf hatchback. In terms of width and length, though, it's about the same size, which means that its proportions are very similar to those of the Polo. It's only when you see the Plus alongside something Polo-sized, as it was in the school car park but wasn't in the office car park, that you realise quite how substantial it is.You'll find a lot of information about the Golf Plus in this magazine. It's all covered in my launch review of the range as a whole and Mike Grundon's road test of the 1.6 SE petrol version. The car tested here is also in SE trim, but it uses Volkswagen's classic 1.9-litre TDI turbo diesel engine, in this case producing a mild but effective 104bhp.The Plus is also available with the more modern and, frankly, better two-litre turbo diesel, but you have to pay extra for it and it's not as economical as the 1.9. The official economy figure for the 1.9 is official 50.4mpg, and in a week of varied driving I had no trouble exceeding this with an eventual figure of just on 53mpg. If you can't manage 550 miles between fill-ups you must be going pretty hard, and I'm sure a 600-mile range is achievable.The downside of the 1.9 TDI is that it's also noisier than the 2.0, and the Plus does little to disguise the fact. The sound levels fall short of being annoying, but the permanent rattle from under the bonnet is certainly one of the car's less appealing features. Another one is the fact that the rear seat doesn't fold entirely flat when you need to carry a lot of luggage (which you can do to the extent of 1450 litres if you pack it up to the roof).At the press launch, this aspect of the Plus didn't strike me as being particularly irritating, but in real life it seems a careless piece of design, as if Volkswagen's interior engineers could have allowed you to create a flat floor if they hadn't left the office early that morning because they'd heard that the canteen was serving really good Bratwurst.One thing I did object to strongly at the launch event was the ridiculously bouncy front end. Driving round Leicestershire in several varieties of Plus, I found that this spoiled the handling and absolutely ruined the ride quality of all of them, and things were no better during a week on home ground. I know Volkswagen's UK people are trying to persuade the Germans that they have to rethink their suspension settings for British roads, and on the evidence of this car alone I sincerely hope that the message gets through as quickly as possible.Other cars of a mini-MPV nature ride and handle very well considering their size, and it beggars belief that a high-quality manufacturer like Volkswagen has produced something which is, in this respect, so far below the class average. Engine 1896cc, 4 cylinders Power 104bhp Transmission 5-speed manual Fuel/CO2 50.4mpg / 151g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 11.9 seconds Top speed 114mph Price £16,475 Details correct at publication date
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