I’ve overhauled so many cars in the last six months or so, that I may have been guilty of getting used to the thrill and spill of driving the rapids. If this is the case, my assignment this week brought me back down to earth, very slowly, I might add, with a bang. The car in question is the Volkswagen Fox, the baby of the German manufacturer’s fleet.
The car has a 0-60 mph time of… wait… to… 17.5 seconds. Top speed is 91 mph and no, there’s no turbo attached to the puny 1.2-liter engine. However, to criticize the Fox for being slow and unexciting misses the point of the car altogether. The giveaway is in the model name of the car I tested: the Volkswagen Urban Fox. In this day and age when gas prices are skyrocketing, roads are getting more congested, and the car is the villain of global warming, the Fox is well could be where the smart money is when it comes to getting around town.
I hate to use the word ‘cheap’, but there’s no other way to describe the Fox, with prices starting at £6,430 to be precise (in the UK, I might add). Putting four new wheels on the road, with a Volkswagen badge adorning your car for this money, is simply a remarkable feat. The cost savings don’t end there either, with Fox falling into insurance group one: the cheapest band. Fuel consumption almost seems to balance out with combined urban and extra-urban figures of 46.3 mpg.
Wow, this is starting to make a lot of sense. The Fox is also quite tall, so despite its diminutive length, the riding position isn’t too dissimilar to a larger 4×4. The advantages of making the car tall are not limited to the driving position, as headroom and legroom are also boosted by the extra inches on top. There is a lot of glass around the car which makes visibility great and parking a doddle.
Outside of his favorite habitat, things go a bit wrong with the fox, especially on the highway. Now, before you shout “the little thing is not made for the big roads!” if we’re being objective, there will be times when you’ll leave the big smoke and run into one of the multi-lane snakes criss-crossing the country. Leaving aside (no pun intended) the 0-60 mph time, the Fox is, and I hate using this word as much as ‘cheap’, slow. An overtaking maneuver requires the advance planning of a chess master and a billiards champion all in one. Shifting from fifth to fourth made little difference to my forward motion and, worryingly, neither did a shift back to third.
The high sides also act like a very large pair of hands that grab all sorts of wind or bumps from a passing truck, giving the Fox a bit of a scare in the outside lane. Once off the highway, though, the Fox feels much more confident navigating the country’s twists and turns, thanks to a longer wheelbase than most in her class and a wider track. In fact, instead of welding the accelerator pedal to the floor, a gradual movement combined with a neat gearbox brought big rewards outdoors.
Parked in front of its rivals, the Fox sits comfortably in the ‘not ugly’ group, but also struggles to make it into the ‘pretty’ rank. As with Volkswagen’s other small hatchback, the Polo, the Fox is subtly styled compared to its rivals, in this case the Citroen C1, Toyota Aygo and Peugeot 107. However, there is something more grown-up and civilized in the Fox when seen alongside the almost immature stylings of the other city cars.
An interesting tidbit for your next pub conversation: Volkswagen is committed to reducing the environmental impact of car production and wants to promote recycling and greener vehicles. In the case of the Fox, it is built in Brazil, where the Curana plant grows. The fibers of this plant of the pineapple family are mixed with a recyclable synthetic material that forms the material of the headlining and the rear parcel shelf. No, the car is not edible.
The Fox has been built using the latest laser welding technology which means it is a very stiff car which helps it to achieve 4 stars in Euro NCAP crash tests and comes with ABS as standard. Optional extras include alloy wheels, air conditioning and a CD player.
The Fox has a big fight on its hands, not necessarily from its competitors, but from the car it replaces: the much loved and cute Lupo. Either way, the evidence is clear. The next time I get behind the wheel of a 2.0-liter turbo monster, I’m going to wish I were a very sensible human being and drove a Volkswagen Fox.