Photo: Tuned Automotive Magazine
Volkswagen has kept a tight lid over the Golf 8, the successor to the most popular car in Europe. However, that's been blown wide open by a couple of videos from South Africa, showing the 2020 hatchback undergoing road testing in full production build.
While some may doubt that this is indeed the Golf 8 because it looks a bit like the old model, we know better than that. South Africa is where VW has done a lot of its testing for things like the Touareg, T-Roc, and Polo. Also, that's where we got our first clear photos of the current Polo, which must have been over a year ago.
So far, we have two videos from Tuned Automotive Magazine, posted to Facebook. Some have argued that this is CGI, but both the footage and the background for the sighting makes sense. The Golf 8 has identical proportions to what we've seen on the 2020 Audi A3 and SEAT Leon, its closest relatives.
More specifically, the design feels like it has a lower hood and a much longer nose than the previous version. Since all three cars are the same in this regard, we believe that either this architecture is designed with a forward-placed engine or there's room for further tech like hybrid or high-level autonomy, maybe even fully electric. Also, the three cars share a raked roof which was uncommon for VW Group in the past.
In any case, the normal Golf 8 will carry over a lot of the engines that it currently has, such as the 1.0 TSI or 1.5 TSI. There's new stuff rumored as well, like a 1.5 TDI with AdBlue and up to 120 HP, or a 2.0 TDI with around 160 HP for the base model and 204 HP in the Golf GTD.
We believe there will be at least one hybrid version, the TSI BlueMotion, and a performance plug-in hybrid with 210 HP. As for the hot models, the GTI is said to top out at about 290 HP, and the Golf R is supposed to have about 350 with hybrid assistance. But that seems a little wild and speculative at this moment.
So far, we have two videos from Tuned Automotive Magazine, posted to Facebook. Some have argued that this is CGI, but both the footage and the background for the sighting makes sense. The Golf 8 has identical proportions to what we've seen on the 2020 Audi A3 and SEAT Leon, its closest relatives.
More specifically, the design feels like it has a lower hood and a much longer nose than the previous version. Since all three cars are the same in this regard, we believe that either this architecture is designed with a forward-placed engine or there's room for further tech like hybrid or high-level autonomy, maybe even fully electric. Also, the three cars share a raked roof which was uncommon for VW Group in the past.
In any case, the normal Golf 8 will carry over a lot of the engines that it currently has, such as the 1.0 TSI or 1.5 TSI. There's new stuff rumored as well, like a 1.5 TDI with AdBlue and up to 120 HP, or a 2.0 TDI with around 160 HP for the base model and 204 HP in the Golf GTD.
We believe there will be at least one hybrid version, the TSI BlueMotion, and a performance plug-in hybrid with 210 HP. As for the hot models, the GTI is said to top out at about 290 HP, and the Golf R is supposed to have about 350 with hybrid assistance. But that seems a little wild and speculative at this moment.
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