The new Volkswagen Golf is coming very soon - sooner than we all expected. Because Mark V was expensive to build, Volkswagen rushed in its new Golf so that it could make more money on it. Only five years after they built the last one. That's an even shorter time between models than most Japanese cars (traditionally, European cars take about 8 years per model cycle).

Well, the big news is that your bog-standard Golf now gets the face of a Scirocco (in the words of Borat: "Nice"), and an even better quality interior. One of the critisisms of the last Golf was that interior quality wasn't up to the same standards as Mark IV, but Volkswagen say that this new Golf will "completely redefine the quality and comfort level of its class". But I'm always more sceptical.

The whole point of releasing the new Golf so early is that it is cheaper to make. Does that mean cheaper interior materials? We'll have to wait and see. The pictures make it look rather nice, however, if rather generic.

Of more interest is the new GTI, which will now have 157 Kilowatts (210 HP) of power, an increase of 10kW - which of course is great, because everyone loves more power. It puffs out less carbon dioxide too, which pleases the greenie in all of us. The R32 will be replaced with the GTI-R, which does not retain the former's engine (due to emissions regulations), and instead gets the engine from the Audi S3 - a 191kW (256 HP) donk.

NEWS: Volkswagen Golf Mark VI