Volkswagen might not be the highest seller in the hatchback segment but the company is among the best when it comes to making hatchbacks. Sure the Volkswagen Golf is one of the best selling vehicles in the world for multiple years now, but Volkswagen’s other hatchback’s haven’t set the sales chart on fire like they were expected to. Volkswagen makes a lot of hatchbacks, some of which are region specific (Gol in Brazil, Fox in South America, etc) and you might not even know about them.
However when it comes to popular hatchbacks from Volkswagen, three cars come to one’s mind – the Up!, Polo and Golf. The Volkswagen Up! is India bound by 2016, although nothing’s confirmed as yet. The Polo is already on sale in India and is exported to various markets from our country. The Golf is not expected anytime soon even though premium hatchbacks like the Mercedes-Benz A-Class, BMW 1-Series, Volkswagen Beetle and Volvo V40 Cross Country are available in India. So what makes us believe that Volkswagen makes the best hatchbacks?
As far as the Volkswagen Golf is concerned, we needn’t say a word as the number of world car of the year awards this vehicle has received is enough to make it the king of its segment. The other two are excellent hatchbacks as rivals have proved. Hyundai has benchmarked the Up! during the development of the second generation i10. Honda benchmarked the Polo while calibrating the suspension and driving position of the new Jazz. This clearly shows that Volkswagen makes the best hatchbacks in a few segments, which is the reason why manufacturers look up to them while designing their products.
Volkswagen has been selling the Up! and Polo in good numbers in quite a few markets but in India the company hasn’t found the same levels of success with the Polo as it might have hoped. Poor dealership experience along with high cost of spares has scared prospective buyers. Should Volkswagen knock the boot off the Jetta to make a hatchback? Not really because the Jetta was conceived as a Golf with a boot. However a notchback version of the Jetta (similar to the Skoda Octavia) seems like an interesting idea or so our renderings suggest.
