VW Scirocco GT (2008) CAR review

Volkswagen has finally launched its new Scirocco coupe and CAR has tested the first production versions. Anthony ffrench-Constant reviews the new Scirocco and wonders why it has taken VW so long to get around to a Mk3… 

Perhaps VW has simply been too busy frantically filling every other market segment it could identify, including some its customers clearly failed to. Happily, we now seem to have someone rather more badge-savvy at the sharp end than VW uber alles obsessed Piech, and they correctly consider a Scirocco to be a better people’s car-proposition than a Phaeton.

VW Scirocco: the history lesson

It’s a whopping 34 years since Giugiaro’s stunning Mk1 hit the streets and, more significantly, at least 15 years since the somewhat bland Mk2 succumbed to alternative employment wedging open the Pearly Gates. You, of course, will remember who’s responsible for that epic backward leap in all things styling-related. I confess, I hated it so much I never bothered to find out, always considering the elegant Corrado to be the original Scirocco’s true spiritual successor.

We’re still none the wiser as to how to categorise the Scirocco today, but I’ll settle for a cut-price coupe. It’s no accident that VW’s new corporate nose (three cheers for the death of the concept’s gaping gob) should appear on a Scirocco a few months before the new sixth-generation Golf; lest we forget, the first Scirocco actually preceded that first Giugiaro Golf by a similar margin.

So the new Scirocco has lashings of Golf under the skin, then?

Yes but, ironically, plumbing the depths of that elegant pressed-metal presentation, you’re more likely to get a strong whiff of Eos than Golf.

The good-looking but highly colour sensitive coachwork retains a surprisingly large dollop of Iroc concept, and in the cabin the dashboard is, irritatingly, almost pure Eos with white back-lighting to the instrument binnacle. Nothing wrong with that per se (except dash-top glare in the windscreen, that is), but doesn’t  such a blatant style statement deserve rather more bespoke treatment on board? A trick missed through the blunderings of bean-counters, I fear.

The Scirocco’s front seats are immediately comfortable and ergonomics as first-class as you’d expect. However, those who like to sit low in a car may find that despite massive reach and rake adjustment, the steering wheel won’t hunker down quite enough for absolute comfort.

Click ‘Next’ to read how the Scirocco performs on the road in CAR’s road test review