Matured Youngster

The new Polo wears flashy clothing to look youthful, but under the skin it’s a mature supermini

- Rohit Paradkar

As I walked through the massive hall number three at the Frankfurt Messe live streaming a visual glimpse of the show cars to the Overdrive followers on social media, I kept getting requests to show the new Polo over and over again. The same pavilion had an Aventador, a rear wheel driven R8, the outrageous 911 GT2 RS and even the 0-400-0kmph record breaking Chiron taking centre stage. But our audience was more interested in the supermini. It isn’t hard to see why the interest levels for this car are so high. The Mk5 Polo has been the flag bearer for VW India for over a decade and though it doesn’t command a big market share, it is still considered the benchmark for a supermini by many. How big an improvement is the new one then? I got a brief drive in one around Frankfurt’s buzzing urban environment and a bit of the autobahn to get my answer.