The updated Volkswagen Golf will be fully revealed before the end of January, but the interior has broken cover early.
A refreshed version of the Volkswagen Golf Mk8 will be unveiled before the end of this month – and the German brand has already allowed us a peek inside to see the revised interior of the iconic family hatchback.
The Golf marks its 50th birthday in 2024, and a recent shift of VW policy means that a ninth generation, powered solely by electricity, is being lined up to continue the story in the second half of the decade. But VW needs to continue selling combustion-powered examples for several years yet, and to help with this, it has put additional focus on correcting some usability issues in the current Golf’s cabin.
VW has issued teaser images of the car, revealing that a hot GTI will continue to be part of the line-up, and showcasing a number of small but significant tweaks to the interior. For starters, the touch-sensitive controls on the steering wheel have been replaced with older-fashioned (but much more usable) conventional buttons and switches.
The large central infotainment system also gets backlighting on its controversial slider controls – a feature that will also be rolled out to the ID.3 electric hatchback later this year – although there’s no sign of conventional, physical dials for the heating and ventilation systems. There appears to be more ambient lighting – but this could ultimately be restricted to higher-end editions, such as the GTI featured.
Externally, the camouflage wrap does a good job of hiding the details, but as with most mid-life facelifts, the Golf won’t get changes to its sheet metal. We do expect revisions to the headlights, though, along with a different, slightly narrower grille and revised bumpers.
There’s no word yet on the engine line-up, but VW has promised “new assist systems and powertrains”, so we’d expect efficiency gains in the regular versions, and higher power and torque figures for the likes of the GTI and R models.