Road Test: VW up!

When I first wrote about the Volkswagen up! it was on the basis of a relatively short experience driving it in Rome, writes Brian Byrne. Which suited it perfectly, being the small and nippy city car designed for use in the kind of environment where we're told a majority of the globe's population is expected to live in 20 years' time.

I loved it. Then too, I'm one of these drivers who absolutely loves driving in Rome. If you've been there, you know why most of my colleagues think I'm crazy in this regard.

Back here in Ireland, many of us still drive longish distances on a variety of non-city roads, from motorways to country lanes. How would the up! fit in our real world?

Soon after picking it up I had the sense that the magic seemed to have evaporated. Even though since elected the World Car of the Year 2012, the up! seemed to be just another reasonably capable citycar box. The spartan-style interior looks like a deliberate affectation. Simple instrumentation is something I prize, but I wasn't sure if I'd like to live with this version.

Right, it was a bad day on the Naas Road, and really there wasn't much of a chance for basic driving enjoyment.

Fast forward to a subsequent evening when I decided to give the up! a deliberate test outing. Motorway down to The Heath near Portlaoise, time shunting along by the Barrow Canal and river through Vicarstown and on to Athy, a bit of a trek along the road towards Carlow, some diversions through small roads to Castledermot, and then a bit of a meander on a variety of surfaces back to my home in Kilcullen.

In all, 100kms just driving for driving's sake. No deadlines, no destinations, no agendas.

No Rome adrenalin either. But the magic came back anyway. The little up! showing aplomb on the fast spin, stickability on the towpath roughs, and a ride quality on ripply asphalt that belied its short wheelbase.

The overall comfort showed just how much things have improved since the similarly-sized original Mini my mother used to lend me way back in the day. Actually, there's more room in the up!, not least because it's a little bit longer, higher and wider, and they have learned a lot about seats in the interim.

The mechanicals have come a long way too, even in recent terms. The up! has the very latest in the current 3-cylinder petrol engines trend, which offers 75hp of smooth power in a much better way than its similar-format predecessors from Volkswagen. They're not doing clackety sewing machines any more. The engine also has the VW BlueMotion technologies package which keeps emissions below 100g/km.

The car comes with a similar automatic emergency braking system as we have seen in larger Volvos and Fords. It works, but don't try it at home. ESP is standard. And the little car also has the biggest boot space in the class at 210 litres. There's also a simple and practical 'double-deck' storage system there that I really like.

All the up! cars for the market introduction in Ireland came equipped with the 'maps and more' module that provides navigation, trip information, phone and other facilities. Maybe they're all sold by now, but look into it. The top of dash unit is a touchscreen system that must be installed at the factory, and normally costs €400 extra. It is updateable by means of a simple software manipulation, and the maps can be tailored to a user's personal profile and need. In fairness, it doesn't have the high-level graphics of other systems, but it works well enough.

Bottom line, though, I have found that the up! in Ireland does have a certain magic that doesn't depend on fairies. Or the Roman driving experience.

Maybe that last is what I missed when I first drove the car here.