The VW Polo is a no thrills, no fuss kind of ride.
VW’s new Polo Sedan will go down as the car that demonstrated to me that my adult children are not ready to survive out in the wild yet.
As parents we always tell our kids how tough our lives were compared to theirs when growing up.
Fighting dinosaurs on the way to school in the snow without shoes on our feet is just the start. Lunch sarmies were filled with the leftovers that you didn’t want to eat from the night before. Apricot jam was a treat.
Pocket money meant cleaning up after the dogs which were the size of horses, cleaning the swimming pool with a pole attached to a pipe, to weekly valeting the family car and cat.
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Getting into trouble meant getting a hiding that would pass as attempted murder these days. No big screen TVs linked to Netflix, no smartphones that cost as much as a car, no internet. Nothing. You kept busy by being outside of the house.
Once high school was done, only the smart and rich went to university. Simple. No woke debates about your rights or child abuse.
Kids today fall over dead if there aren’t sugar-free, fat-free, vegan steaks in the fridge next to the soya milk and lightning-fast fibre for their TikToks.
My daughter went out to the new VW Polo Sedan and came running back in all confused because the gear lever had a bunch of numbers printed on it and not P, R, N and D. I realised that I am stuck with them until they marry an equally clueless spouse at 42 years old.
You see, the Polo Sedan The Citizen Motoring had on test was the Life model fitted with a five-speed manual transmission that retails for R345 600.
This tool of mass confusion features a peppy 1.6-litre naturally aspirated engine producing 81 kW of power and 152 Nm of torque.
It’s never going to win you any traffic light duels, but the fuel consumption at below 7.0 litres per 100 km will make up for this.
You get sedan-sized interior space and a huge boot, as well as some proper spec in terms of LED headlights, taillights and 16-inch alloys on the outside, while on the inside you get keyless entry, ambient lighting and Climatronic air conditioning.
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Technology in the Polo Sedan comes in the form of a 10-inch touchscreen infotainment system equipped with wireless App Connect and wireless mobile charging.
Safety offers only two airbags, Electronic Stability Control (ESC), multi collision braking system, tyre pressure monitoring and Park Distance Control at the rear, with a rear-view camera.
Is the Polo Sedan racy and aspirational? No, there is a Polo GTI for that. But it carries the VW badge and is a solid car that will keep my kids at home forever.
The VW Polo Sedan comes standard with a three-year/120 000km warranty and a three-year/45 000km EasyDrive Service Plan.
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