Style, quality and practicality

Style, quality and practicality

Visually, unless you really know your onions, you'd never guess that the Golf and Scirocco were related.

Even the gaping VW corporate grille has been binned in favour of a tight lipped snout, while the sloping roofline and curvaceous behind are the antithesis of the Golf's rather boxy lines.

Inside, however, the VW gene pool is clearly evident.

Plip the remote central-locking and the frameless windows drop a couple of centimetres to prevent snagging when opening the doors.

The dash and door cappings owe more to the drop-head Eos than Golf, but the same solid fixtures and fittings and exquisite attention to detail dominating proceedings.

Bespoke triangular door pulls echo the lines of the knee braces mounted on the central console, while a touch-screen control panel for the stereo is complemented by silkily damped switches and rotary dials for the heating and ventilation.

The door panel inserts and sports seats are finished in a classy meshed weave, while hefty seat side bolsters provide plenty of high-speed cornering support.

There's also a generous range of vertical and horizontal travel for the chunky hide-bound flat-bottomed steering wheel.

Getting into the back requires a degree of flexibility and caution to avoid banging your bonce, but once seated and belted, there's a decent amount of kneeroom and plenty of space under the front seats to slide your size nines.

That plunging roofline means headroom is a bit on the tight side, but the two elevated rear seats give reasonable forward visibility, even if the slotted side windows limit the view out.

Nip around the back and it's clear that an inordinate amount of time and effort has been expended trying to successfully blend the rear tailgate into the Scirocco's swoopy profile.

While the hinges have been hidden beneath a neat pair of aerodynamic bulges in the roof panel, the bottom lip of the hatch hangs over the opening to give a seamless finish.

Open the tailgate via the key fob, or by the driver's door-mounted switch (there's no trick levered VW badge here) and boot space is not what you'd call capacious.

At 292 litres, there's just about enough room for a half a dozen carrier bags, so you'll certainly need to flip down at least one of the 50-50 split fold rears to slide in your golf bag.