Supermini megatest - Volkswagen Polo

Volkswagen Polo 1.4 SE
List price £12,450


We've got the wrong car, surely? VW has sent us a Golf by mistake.

That's the first reaction on seeing the new Polo. You have to stare long and hard to pick up the subtle differences in their grilles and lights, the upsweep of the Polo's rearmost side windows and the bolder swage lines along its flanks. For all the world, the Polo looks like a seven-eighths-scale Golf.

Still, is that such a bad thing? The Golf has long been the best mid-sized hatch to put your own money into, and now the same could be true of the Polo among superminis. With VW's new small car platform, some new or refettled engines and an interior upgrade, particularly on mid- and high-grade models, it might even tempt a few Golf owners to downsize.

A few people will also gravitate from other superminis when they see the Polo's pricing. The 1.4 SE costs £12,450. That's £500 less than a comparable Corsa or Clio and £1200 below a Fiesta.

Put another way, a top-spec Polo SEL undercuts a mid-spec Fiesta Zetec by £120. Even the SE is better equipped than the Ford, with curtain airbags and stability control as standard, and four electric windows instead of two.

The Polo is roomier, more refined and more plushly trimmed, too, if not as stylishly modern. It exudes dignified elegance, with its squishy trim and chrome detailing (the Ford even has plastic inner door handles), although all this sobriety probably means you won't find the young, free and single flocking to it.

In the past, Polos were stodgy things to drive, bought by those more concerned with future values than with immediate enjoyment: in short, people who would decorate their home top to bottom in magnolia. Not any more.

While we won't pretend that a Polo can deliver the enjoyment you get from a Fiesta, it is now a genuinely satisfying car to drive, with a pleasantly torquey 84bhp 1.4-litre petrol engine and mostly supple and well-controlled suspension.

It doesn't like sudden surface changes and even kicks back through the steering wheel over the worst of them, but that's the extent of the criticism.

It shows that small cars can be mature and still have a twinkle in the eye – and that they don't have to cost the earth because the pound is on sick leave. A Polo £1200 cheaper than a Fiesta? It must make Ford want to weep.