Under the bonnet buyers of the Volkswagen Golf have a choice of five petrol and four diesel engines.

Petrol units are a 1.4-litre with 80ps or a 1.6-litre with 102ps, plus 1.4-litre TSI powerplants with 122 or 160ps and the 2.0-litre TSI from the GTI. The TSI units utilise a turbocharger, and in some cases a supercharger as well, to produce a smooth flow of power across a wide section of the rev-range.

Want a diesel? There are a couple of 2.0-litre common rail diesels offering power outputs of 140 or 170ps. Further down the range, the 1.6-litre oil-burner is available with 90 or 105ps. A number of options are available on the Golf for the first time, including Volkswagen's Adaptive Chassis Control (ACC) which allows the driver to select from normal, comfort or sport modes to define the desired suspension, steering and accelerator response settings for any particular journey. ParkAssist, which takes over steering inputs to facilitate parallel parking manoeuvres, is also available as an option.

Riding on the same underpinnings as the MkV Golf, you won't be expecting the MkVI model's road-going performance to be anything other than highly polished.

It uses a combination of MacPherson struts at the front wheels and four-link suspension at the rear promising to replicate the supple ride and adroit handling of its predecessor.

The electro/mechanical steering system is also carried over, enabling an 11m turning circle. Power is fed to the wheels through a standard six-speed manual gearbox, but the fast-shifting seven-speed DSG twin clutch gearbox is also available.

Volkswagen was never about to break with tradition where the Golf's styling was concerned. A clear design lineage can be traced back to the original Golf circa 1974 and breaking that in favour of some bold new styling direction would have been completely out of character for the German marque.

Conservative but classy has long been the Golf staple and the MkVI model diligently tows that line with the wide grille first seen on the Scirocco coupe which merges with the headlamps to form a single band across the nose. At the back, the huge tail light clusters are similar in shape to the headlamps and curve round into the rear wings to visually widen the car. It's the interior, though, where the most obvious alterations have been made. Quality soft-touch plastics are everywhere and virtually every available button or dial gets its own chrome border.

The instruments that used to illuminate in blue are now bright white but the overall shape of the dash is similar to that in the MkV Golf.

There's a big step forward in terms of refinement however, thanks to a completely new design of door and window seals, a new damping film that supports the windscreen and a new engine mounting system.

This Golf is available in six trim levels – S, Match, GT, GTD, GTI and R – but there are also fuel efficient BlueMotion models to consider based on the 1.6 TDI engine and versions with BlueMotion Technology (some but not all of the BlueMotion features).

There are three- or five-door body styles with the standard hatch, plus a more versatile Golf Plus variant and an estate model.