2019 Volkswagen T-Roc Review
THE VW Golf, someone once said, is a byword for everything you really need from a car. It is the answer to every motoring question that鈥檚 been asked. You鈥檙e a tearaway and you want something fun. Buy a Golf GTI (Clarkson did). You鈥檙e a commuter and you need a sensible car to drive to the station. Buy a Golf GTD. You鈥檙e a nurse and you need something cheap and reliable to get you to the hospital every morning. Buy a second-hand Golf S. Problem solved, then. But wait 鈥?maybe the question is, 鈥淲hat if I need an SUV for ease of loading and unloading and riding over urban speed bumps, and because it feels safer on the motorway? The Golf is still the answer, even though in this case it鈥檚 called a T-Roc. Ignore the trendy name 鈥?it鈥檚 a jacked-up Golf. Its designers have given it a rugged look, but the disguise is fooling no one.
It should have been called a Golf X-Cross. The reason it wasn鈥檛 is that VW didn鈥檛 want the Golf brand to steal sales from soft SUVs made by its subsidiaries: the Skoda Karoq, the Seat Ateca and the Audi Q2. Asked how it came up with the name T-Roc, Volkswagen was at a loss to explain. Maybe the marketing people came back with hangovers from a three-day brainstorming session and hit random keys on the computer. Whatever, the T-Roc is a Golf for the new, suburban, safety-conscious school-run, flat-pack, garden-centre generation. True, it鈥檚 not the most practical of the family. That鈥檇 be the Golf estate. The VW stylists clearly got their way in deciding the raked roofline at the back, which reduces rear visibility as well as headroom and boot space. It won鈥檛 swallow a fridge-freezer, though it will fit a Billy bookcase. There鈥檚 no point going on at length about how the T-Roc drives or its build quality, because as it鈥檚 merely an addition to the Golf clan, the chances are you鈥檝e already experienced it in some form.
Volkswagen is a master at repurposing cars among its many subsidiaries. All car manufacturers do this to some extent, to spread the enormous engineering costs more thinly. For instance, the Fiat 500 is a Panda underneath; the new Toyota Supra is a BMW Z4 in a new outfit. But no one excels like Volkswagen at this practice of platform-sharing, and no platform is more widely shared than the Golf鈥檚. In addition to underpinning those SUVs already mentioned, it is used in the Audi A3, Q3 and TT, the Seat Leon, the Skoda Octavia and the VW Tiguan and Touran. In one sense, then, buying a T-Roc is like wearing the same jeans as everyone else, made in the same factory with the same grade of denim, but with a slightly different wash and a different label. This may make you bridle at the idea of conformity, but it鈥檚 no bad thing when it comes to selling on.
Like the Golf, the T-Roc makes a virtue of being inoffensive. It鈥檚 not the cheapest car in the world, but neither is it conspicuously expensive. It doesn鈥檛 say you鈥檙e hard-up; nor does it say you鈥檙e a show-off 鈥?it鈥檚 timeless and classless. There鈥檚 no shortage of choice in this, the most buoyant sector of the car market. But unless you haven鈥檛 forgiven VW for Dieselgate, choosing a T-Roc is more 鈥渨hy not鈥?than 鈥渨hy鈥? There鈥檚 the Mini Countryman, but not everyone鈥檚 a fan. Clarkson called it dreary, ugly and unnecessary. Perhaps you like the look of the Toyota C-HR, but after you鈥檝e test-driven one you may change your mind. That said, choosing which T-Roc to buy isn鈥檛 easy. VW turns it out with a bewildering number of engines and trims, and that鈥檚 before you start adding options. The result is that the 拢33,930 2-litre automatic version costs a staggering 76% more than the 1-litre manual, at 拢19,270. The good news is that the T-Roc comes with a choice of three petrol and two diesel engines 鈥?evidence, if it were needed, that petrol is in the ascendancy after years of retreat.
