Hey all,

It had been a pretty long time dream of mine to own a Golf GTI and when the time came to buy my own car after giving up a company car, I looked long and hard at it. I was pretty discouraged that I couldn't really afford it having a sub-30k budget and wanting a car that was fairly new. The only Mk6 Golf GTI's out there under $30k either had had monstrously high km's on them or were quite old (the first examples).

I'd read that the Polo was damn good and obviously saw that it won Motor's BFYB in 2011. Then when it won it again in 2012 beating the crap out of the Toyobaru 86/BRZ (and not having the slightest interest in getting a Fabia RS), I had a real hard think about the Polo. It never really was on my list until late. I test drove the Golf plenty of times and was pretty set on it, but after test driving the Polo I felt that in the short time you get on a test drive, the performance felt basically the same.

Obviously the Golf has a bigger engine (2.0 t/c vs 1.4 s/c +t/c), but the Polo is smaller and lighter, so the difference isn't that marked. I initally thought that the smaller-ness of the Polo would be an issue but after thinking about it, I don't have kids, most of the time its just myself and my girlfriend in the car. Obviously I've stepped down quite a few car sizes going from my old VE Commodore Sportwagon to a Polo but I don't really miss the extra space much (yet!).

The Polo is such a blast to drive but I wonder, what is missing compared to the Golf? Occasionally I wish the power would come on quicker but with the Golf's turbo lag, is there any real difference? I've never read any review directly comparing the two, are there any out there? The Little Polo can take on most cars at the lights, except for someone with an obviously more powerful car who's actually trying

- What is the power to weight ratio of both?
- What can the 2.0 do that the 1.4 can't?
- Any real difference in 0-100 times? (Both quoted 6.9 sec but we know that can vary)

Interested to know people's thoughts, especially anyone who has spent a lot of time in both cars.

Cheers
Michael