PoloDriver

The latest figures released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) reveal that the Volkswagen Polo was the ninth most popular car in the UK during January 2020. A total of 2,336 Polos found new homes in the first month of the year, which also means the long-standing model is also ninth in the year-to-date top ten chart.

The Ford Fiesta was the clear leader with 6,087 registrations, ahead of its larger relative, the Ford Focus, in second place with 5,287 units. The Nissan Qashqai rounded out the top three with 4,608 registrations. The Volkswagen Golf’s 4,027 units put it in fifth place. Soon to usher in a new generation, the Vauxhall Corsa took fourth place with 4,373 registrations.

As a whole, UK registrations fell 7.3 per cent in January to 149,279 units, but demand for battery electric cars enjoyed a year-on-year rise of 2,720 units. Plug-in and ‘self-charging’ hybrids also enjoyed a peak in demand. The UK’s top ten most popular new cars during January 2020 and the year-to-date (sales figure and position in brackets) were as follows:

1 Ford Fiesta: 6,087 (6,087, 1st)
2 Ford Focus: 5,287 (5,287, 2nd)
3 Nissan Qashqai: 4,608 (4,608, 3rd)
4 Vauxhall Corsa: 4,373 (4,373, 4th)
5 Volkswagen Golf: 4,027 (4,027, 5th)
6 Mercedes-Benz A-Class: 3,214 (3,214, 6th)
7 Kia Sportage: 2,457 (2,457, 7th)
8 BMW 3 Series: 2,242 (2,242, 8th)
9 Volkswagen Polo: 2,336 (2,336, 9th)
10 Vauxhall Grandland X: 2,261 (2,261, 10th)

Across Europe, a total of 20,037 Polos were registered according to Jato Dynamics, making it the fifth most popular car across the continent. The Golf was topped the popularity stakes with 26,303 registrations. Volkswagen was the most popular brand across Europe with 133,558 registrations, and the Polo-based T-Cross SUV’s 12,880 units saw it declared top market share winner.

Polo Vivo is the South African chart-topper
Seemingly never putting a tyre wrong, the Polo Vivo once again topped the new car registrations charts in South Africa, with 2,811 new cars on driveways. The latest National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (NAAMSA) figures show that the sixth-generation Polo was in second place once more with 1,761 units sold, with 7,959 exported from Volkswagen South Africa’s Uitenhage factory. The Polo-based T-Cross registered 764 units, and 503 fifth-generation Polo Sedans were registered.

Volkswagen South Africa’s Uitenhage factory has produced its 200,000th example of the current Polo for export, following production of its 200,000th sixth-generation Polo in September 2019. The landmark export car rolled off the production line on 31 January.

The plant has manufactured over one million cars for export since 1994, and has enjoyed a tradition of exporting Polos to all right-hand drive markets, also supplementing demand for left-hand drive models. Total exports from Uitenhage now number a total of 1,098,960 vehicles.

The milestone follows a year of records for Volkswagen South Africa. In 2019 it manufactured a total of 161,954 vehicles, surpassing its previous record of 137,758 in 2011. More impressively, Volkswagen South Africa ended the year with a 23.4 per cent share of the passenger car market.

‘As a company we had many reasons to be proud in 2019, and this milestone sets the tone for another strong year ahead,’ said Thomas Schaefer, Volkswagen Group South Africa chairman and managing director. ‘We intend to build on our strong performance in 2020, both in the local and export markets, and we remain committed to delivering excellence to both our customers and the larger community.’

The latest 197bhp Polo GTI is the most powerful ever, and with as much power as a fifth-generation Golf GTI of 2004, Barracuda Racing Wheels Europe thought VW’s small firecracker deserved a more striking set of rims.

The German tuner’s Tzunamee EVO alloys pictured here are 8×18-inches in size, wrapped in 215/35R18 rubber. With a dark gunmetal finish, the company quotes a pronounced concavity of fifty millimetres and state that as the brushed regions of the spoke ends extend to the edge of the rims, the wheels appear larger than they really are.

Priced from €299, optional €69 eight millimetre spacers on the rear ensure perfect alignment between front and rear and lend the sixth-generation Polo GTI a more aggressive appearance. This is helped on Barracuda’s show car by a set of €249 special “JMS made by H&R” springs which lower the pumped-up, go-faster Polo’s body by 40mm at the front, and 30mm at the rear.

Barracuda Racing Wheels’ range of rims are available from car dealerships as well as tyre and specialist stores. They can also be bought online from www.barracuda-europe.de, and the company has extensive social media presence on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

The Volkswagen Polo has kicked off 2020 in the same way as 2019, awarded ‘Best Small Car’ by What Car? magazine. According to the judges, the VW supermini defended its crown thanks to its impressive blend of qualities that make it ‘a complete package’.

Pitched against Skoda’s Fabia 1.0 SE TSI 95, winner of the ‘Best Small Car – £14,000-£16,000’ category and the new Peugeot 208 PureTech 100 Allure which topped the ‘Best Small Car – More than £18,000’ segment, the Polo 1.0 SE TSI 95 was named the Overall Winner of the ‘Best Small Car’ prize, as well as being awarded the ‘Best Small Car’ £16,000-£18,000 trophy. The win marks the second consecutive year that it has claimed an overall victory in this category.

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‘The complete package’
Every aspect of the Polo attracted praise, the judges particularly impressed with its comfortable interior, quiet engine, and overall value as a package. Steve Huntingford, editor of What Car?, said: ‘The Volkswagen Polo has an interior that’s easier to get along with than other small car rivals, as well as a quieter engine. When it comes to comfort, the Polo is the small car in which you’ll feel freshest after covering lots of motorway miles… It really is the complete package.’

At the same ceremony, the high-performance T-Roc R, the newest member of the Volkswagen SUV family, clinched its price point award of ‘Best Sports SUV under £40,000’. Like the Polo, the Touran people-mover also continued its run of success, collecting a win in its price point as ‘Best MPV £22,000-£30,000’. The 2020 What Car? Awards mark the fifth consecutive year in which the Touran has been celebrated in the MPV category.

The latest victory for the Polo adds to the impressive haul of prizes it won in 2019. The small Volkswagen was crowned ‘Supermini of the Year’ by Company Car Today magazine, ‘Safe Car of the Year’ at the First Car Awards, and ‘Small Car of the Year’ from the UK Car of the Year panel. Volkswagen products won a total of 26 UK awards in 2019, with the Up city car, the Polo and the Golf the most decorated products.

According to the latest figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), the Volkswagen Polo was both the ninth most popular car in the UK during December 2019, and also for the year.

The latest SMMT tallies reveal that 2,715 Polos found new homes during December 2019, while for the year as a whole, a total of 37,453 units of Volkswagen’s small hatchback were registered. The Golf was the most popular car during December 2019, its 4,585 units pushing the 4,168 of the Ford Fiesta into second place.

The small Ford ruled the roost overall, though, with 77,833 registered during the 12 months of 2019, compared with 58,994 of the second-placed Golf. Which for a car which is replaced imminently, is impressive. Volkswagen registered 200,771 cars in 2018, leading to an 8.69 per cent market share.

It was bad news elsewhere, though. Overall UK new car sales were down 2.4 per cent in 2019, the third consecutive year of decline. The lowest total for six years, 2,311,140 new cars were registered last year, although December’s totals were up 3.4 per cent compared to the same period in 2018.

Other headlines include the rise of battery electric cars – up 144 per cent – while hybrids still dominated the alternative fuel market and were up 17.1 per cent. However, CO2 emissions increased for the third consecutive year, no doubt buoyed by the 2.2 per cent rise in demand for petrol models, and the 21.8 per cent slump in diesel registrations. The top ten most popular new cars in the UK during December 2019 and the overall year (registration figure and position in brackets) were as follows:

1 Volkswagen Golf: 4,585 (58,994, 2nd)

2 Ford Fiesta: 4,168 (77,833, 1st)
3 Mini: 3,985 (41,188, 8th)
4 Ford Kuga: 3,610 (41,671, 7th)
5 BMW 3 Series: 3,527
6 Ford Focus: 3,261 (56,619, 3rd)
7 Mercedes-Benz A-Class: 3,050 (53,724, 5th)
8 Other: 2,824
9 Volkswagen Polo: 2,715 (37,453, 9th)
10 Vauxhall Grandland X: 2,566

(The 2019 top ten most popular cars absent from December 2019’s registration figures were the fourth-placed Vauxhall Corsa, the sixth-placed Nissan Qashqai and the tenth-placed Kia Sportage, with 54,239, 52,532 and 34,502 units recorded respectively.)

The Polo has also been named as the ninth most popular searched for car on the Auto Trader website, based on advertisement views. The Polo was searched for 463,548 times according to the Auto Trader UK’s Most Popular Cars 2019 report, which combined a survey of 2,000 UK drivers with search data from advertisement views on the website and companion app to reveal the most popular makes, models and features on the new car market. The Volkswagen Golf topped the list, with a total of 1,307,303 advertisement views, the second consecutive year the VW family hatch has done so.

Record year for Volkswagen South Africa
Once more the Polo Vivo was December 2019’s top-performing model in South Africa, where it topped the passenger car sales charts with 1,779 units. The newest NAAMSA (National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa) figures state that the sixth-generation Polo repeated its second place position from November with 1,410 units sold.

The often-forgotten Polo Sedan (still based on the older fifth-generation model) shifted 532 examples, while 685 T-Cross models found new homes. Volkswagen South Africa celebrated a record 2019 overall, its 161,954 production total a new single-year record for the Uitenhage factory.

The highest volume the plant has achieved since it started manufacturing Volkswagens in 1951, 131,365 Polos left the line, along with 30,589 Polo Vivos for the local market. The Polo Vivo was the best-selling passenger car in the country, too, with 29,619 cars finding new owners. It topped the A0 small car segment with a market share of 24.5 per cent, while the Volkswagen brand as a whole was the country’s leading manufacturer with a 23.4 per cent market share.