Volkswagen has unveiled the facelifted Golf, with this mid-cycle refresh seeing slight design tweaks, an upgraded interior and the availability of a newly developed 1.5-litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine.
Visually, the changes are fairly subtle. The front bumper has been slightly reprofiled, with altered grill and air duct styling. The car's head lights and taillights are now fully LED as well.
The changes on the model's interior are more substantial. The trim for the doors, dashboard and centre console have been revised, while a range of optional touch-based infotainment systems are now available. In line with recent new Volkswagen models, the facelifted Golf also can be equipped with an Active Info Display, replacing the analogue intruments on the dashboard with a 12.3-inch high-definition monitor displaying a fully digital instrument cluster.
The facelifted Golf also gets a few more safety and convenience features. The notable addition is the Traffic Jam Assist on dual-clutch transmission models. This allows the car to crawl in traffic and automatically applying brakes when necesasry, at speeds of up to 60km/h. Other safety features include Emergency Assist, Lane Assist, an updated City Emergency Braking System, and Park Assist 3.0.
A newly developed 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine now joins the Golf's engine lineup. In it's most powerful guise, it will produce 148bhp and 249Nm of torque. An economical BlueMotion variant, with 128bhp and 199Nm of torque, is claimed to be able to achieve 24.5km/L. The updated Golf GTI model also sees its existing turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine retuned, bumping up power by an extra 10bhp.
The updated Volkswagen Golf is expected to hit markets in 2017, keeping the company's best-selling model up-to-date while it works on the new eighth generation Golf, slated to be launched in 2019.
