Volkswagen Up! Review

Volkswagen brought the up! out in 2011 as the city car to take on the likes of the Toyota Aygo and the popular Fiat 500 and it’s proved its popularity in the small car segment as the model has now been refreshed, so how does it rate? Is it practical enough to be used as an everyday runaround?

The car we tested came with a 1.0-litre, three-cylinder petrol engine, which mated with a five-speed manual transmission produces 60PS, has a top speed of 100mph and gets from 0 - 62 mph in 14.4 seconds. The figures aren’t show stopping but the nippy engine is great for city driving, it gives you enough power and even at cruising speeds it’s suprisingly no slouch. The only minus is it struggles on steep inclines and you really have to put your foot to the floor to make sure you get to the top before sundown.

There are also 75PS and 90PS versions available of this engine, but what we like about the up! is that there is also a fully electric variant, the e-up!, which is ideal for commuters.

Steering is really light so it’s great at manoeuvring around town, it makes light work of getting into any tight parking spaces. The ride is good in the up! even for rear passengers as it’s often the way that those in the back end up feeling every undulation in some city cars and although it’s firm it’s forgiving on rough roads and we were impressed how the combination of handling and the ride make for a great supermini.

There is quite a lot of wind and road noise that makes its way into the cabin, which is to be expected for such a car.

The three-cylinder is quite quiet at idle, but once you get it going you’ll either love or hate the gruff three pot noise as it accelerates. We love it...

The sound system on the up! is really very good if you want to drown out any of this with six speakers around the car to help.

If you like firm seats then you’ll have no issues in the up!, but they could still do with some extra comfort as they didn’t feel as supportive for longer journeys.

Sometimes you get into a city car and it can be a case of ‘get what you pay for’ scenario, but with the up! it seems different.

Like rivals the instrument panel is kept very plain with a large speedo in the middle, alongside a highly stylish five-inch colour touchscreen which gives it that edge over rivals, it really did feel surprising that we were in just a city car, as some hatchback interiors don’t look as sophisticated.

We drove it in the Move up! trim (we love the other trim names of Take up! and High up!) which features air conditioning, electric front windows, height adjustable steering wheel, Bluetooth, a USB point, LED running lights and rear fog lights.

If you’re into your music then Volkswagen have the up! beats trim which is a collaboration with Beats Audio, so expect to make some noise with a 300-watt sound system.

The cabin is surprisingly quite spacious, there’s good head and legroom in the front and you can at a squeeze seat three passengers in the rear.

Despite it being a three-door we found it easy to get a car seat and toddler into the rear, although our only gripe was that the front seat backs never went back to their original position, so had to be adjusted everytime from being ramrod straight.

The boot isn’t overly large at 251 litres but it does beat the 196-litres in the Citroen C1 and there is a removable floor to make it deeper, we easily fit in three large bags of shopping. But if you are a mum looking to run it as a runaround we struggled to fit in a pushchair. The rear bench seat splits and folds down for increased luggage space and rear passengers also have drinks holders.

The Volkswagen up! is priced from £8,995, compare it to rivals such as the sister brand, Seat Mii which is £7,995 or the Citroen C1 costing £8,145 then it is the slightly costlier option.

That being said if you’re looking for a runaround, or a first car, then it is a great supermini as it drives so well.

With CO2 emissions at just 96g/km it’ll be exempt from road tax and Volkswagen reckon that a combined 68.9mpg could be achievable, so another bonus is that running costs will be extremely low.

Volkswagen have built a pretty good car, there are quite a few plastic bits, as to be expected of a car of this size and price, but they feel solid while the carbon fibre-esque dash adds some class along with the piano black gloss centre console finish.

Reliability is definitely an area which could be improved upon for the up!, but owners are impressed with the low running costs and it was named ‘Best Car Under £10,000’ in the 2016 Telegraph Cars Awards and it won the World Car of Year award back in 2012 so that speaks volumes about the model.

The Volkswagen up! is well-equipped so it’s no wonder it scored five stars in the Euro NCAP ratings with 89% for adult occupant protection.

It has driver and passenger front, head and side airbags, hill hold assist, electronic stability and traction control and an anti-locking braking system.

Security comes in the form of an engine immobiliser and remote central locking.

There is an optional city emergency braking pack costing £375.