SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8
This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
*To read one of our road tests, just select from the menu on the left.
*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.
Posted February 7, 2013
Published in The Witness Motoring on Wednesday February 13, 2013
Quite correct; VW got it right on the third try. The original Beetle, a.k.a. Hitler’s Revenge,wasn’t really that great. It was noisy, slow, thirsty and felt like you were driving a cave. And the heater smelled of oil fumes because it blew air across the engine before pumping it into the cabin. Ignore the romanticised hype; its only saving grace was that the bin behind the back seat was exactly the right size to stash a carry cot. It’s probably why so many new age fans have such warm and fuzzy memories of it.
Your writer drove Renaults, reckoning that if you absolutely insisted on owning a rear-engined beast with hyperactive swing axles and dodgy road manners, you should at least have some fun while doing so. They were also reasonably comfortable, had bright and airy cabins and used less fuel.
The first retro repro Beetle wasn’t very successful, convincing only 2600 South Africans to buy one. Its design was much too bulgy and feminine. It even had a flower vase inside and a handbag hook on the dash. Puh-leeze! Real women don’t fall for patronising tripe like that.
Beetle lll is a lot better, with more realistic lines and more practical space inside. It, too, is based on the Golf, but has its own character. We would call it an alternative for free-thinkers who, while appreciating all that’s good about Golf, would prefer something less bland, boxy and, well, Golfish. How about something curvaceous and interesting, practical yet not bound to the ultimate suburban must-have of four doors? Why not something radically different from the other little tin boxes; slightly retro, yet modern, something Beetle-ish?
Finally, the kicker: apart from the entry-level 1200 cc version, Beetle Sport boasts, for now at least, a power plant more potent than any available in Golf Seven. That’s right; this one uses the 118-kW twin-charged version of the marque’s 1400 cc four and gets its power down with a choice of six-speed manual or seven-speed DSG transmissions. The most potent new petrol-fired Golf has to make do with only 103 kW. Snicker.
While amazingly tractable both in city traffic and on the open road, thanks to maximum torque kicking in at 1500 rpm and hanging in there until 4500, it has top end too. Peak power happens at 5800 and is usable until the limiter spoils your fun at around 6200. What this means is that you can drive it pretty much any way you like. Whether you choose to loaf along at low revs, casually easing down on the loud pedal when more go is required, or whether you prefer to drive like you actually enjoy doing so, this engine is made for you.
Although it’s fun to work the very positive manual box, set it up for corners and cover ground disgracefully, King Beetle the Third isn’t quite the ultimate small hooligan car. Sorry. Its cabin is a touch too wide to allow for bracing one’s body against convenient metalware and leaning into the job. Pity about that, but perhaps designers Walter de Silva and Klaus Bischoff could do a midlife refresh sometime and rectify the small oversight?
Other small minuses are that the boot looks really big but loses space because of its sloping lid, and the fact that only little people can sit comfortably in the individually sculpted back seats. Without passengers though, the backs fold down to stretch luggage volume from 310 litres to a useful 950, so it’s not all bad. Speaking of space, this car is perfect for the chronically untidy who need scads of little storage units. We counted sixteen, apart from the cubby. There is even a shallow one disguised as the original’s glove box, up on front of the dash.
Summing up, Volkswagen offers an alternative that’s dynamite to drive, decently practical, comfortable and sufficiently different to be interesting. So if you have soul, why buy a Golf?
Test unit supplied by VWSA press fleet
The numbers
Price: R302 500 (m), R317 000 (DSG)
Engine: 1390cc, 16-valve, four-cylinder, super- and turbocharged
Power: 118 kW at 5800 rpm
Torque: 240 Nm between 1500 and 4500 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 8,3 seconds
Maximum speed: 208 km/h
Real life fuel consumption: About 7,6 l/100 km
Tank: 55 litres
Warranty: 3 years/120 000 km
Maintenance plan: 5 years/60 000 km; at 15 000 km intervals
For more on specifications and features, see the launch report
This is a one-man show, which means that every car reviewed is given my personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every test car goes through real world driving; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.
I do my best to include relevant information like real life fuel economy or a close mathematical calculation, boot size or luggage space, whether the space is both usable and accessible, whether life-sized people can use the back seat (where that applies), basic specs of the vehicle and performance figures if they are published. In the case of clearly identified launch reports, fuel figures are of necessity the laboratory numbers provided with the release material. If I ever place an article that doesn't cover most things, it's probably because I have dealt with that vehicle at least once already, so you will be able to find what you want in another report under the same manufacturer's heading in the menu on the left.
My reviews and launch reports appear on Thursdays in the Wheels supplement to The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles each month, most months of the year (except over the festive season) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police.
Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so they can see I do actually exist.
Comments?
Want to ask a question, comment or just tell me you thoroughly disagree with what I say? That's your privilege, because if everybody agreed on everything, the world would be a boring place. All I ask is that you remain calm, so please blow off a little steam before venting too vigorously.
This site is operated by Scarlet Pumpkin Communications in Pietermaritzburg.
Unless otherwise stated, all photographs are courtesy of www.quickpic.co.za
Copyright this business. All rights reserved.
SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8