Pricing and specification details for the updated Volkswagen Golf have been revealed, as the stalwart family hatchback gains a comprehensive overhaul in its 50th year on sale.
The new Golf hatchback is priced from £27,035 while the estate is slightly more expensive, at £28,400. Order books open on 11 April.
The Golf GTI hot hatch and electrified Golf GTE and eHybrid models will be available to order in the summer.
Three specification levels are offered from launch: Life, Match and Style for the traditional hatch-bodied Golf, and Life and Style for the estate version.
R-Line cars will follow from 25 April, with prices starting from £30,285 for the R-Line hatchback and £31,650 for the estate. The range-topping, performance Golf R is due later this year.
The range will kick off with a choice of 1.5-litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engines and all initial models adopt a traditional front-wheel-drive layout. They include 114bhp and 148bhp turbocharged 1.5-litre petrol units – with and without mild-hybrid technology.
A reworked turbocharged 2.0-litre petrol engine also joins the range with an added 13bhp, at 201bhp, in the upgraded 2.0 TSI – and 20bhp more in the 262bhp GTI, which is no longer available with a manual gearbox.
The eighth-generation Golf was rebooted in a bid to sustain its appeal to the end of the decade, when it will be replaced by the electric Mk9 Golf. As it turns 50, the German firm’s all-time best-seller receives a wide-reaching suite of technology upgrades, usability enhancements, material improvements and a new look inside and out.
The powertrain line-up has been revamped too, with the addition of new long-range plug-in hybrids, revised petrol and diesel options – and more power for the GTI hot hatch, which will head the line-up until the launch of the revised four-wheel-drive Golf R later this year.