Volkswagen Fox Road Test Report

Performance

The three-cylinder 1.2-litre engine helps the Fox get around town with ease and, despite only generating 53bhp and 80lb-ft of torque, it even copes well at higher speeds. The 1.4-litre unit has a little more power – 73bhp and 92lb-ft – but it’s a moot point whether it’s worth shelling out an extra £830 for the bigger engine. The 1.2 is even good enough for occasional long journeys and road trips, but if you have a daily motorway commute, it could start to wear on you. After all, it’s not exactly lightning quick: 17.5 seconds for 0-62mph marks it down as one of the slowest cars on the UK road (it would only beat the Chevrolet Matiz, Perodua Kenari and Fiat Panda in a sprint) even if it does feel quicker than that. The 1.4 is quicker - 13 seconds for 0-62 – but you still won’t win many drag races in it.

Ride & Handling

The driving dynamics of the Fox sets it apart from most of its budget rivals: it has sharp, direct steering, responsive brakes, good levels of grip and a nifty little gearbox that has accurate shifts and a feeling of solidity. In addition, it feels good to drive thanks to excellent all-round visibility on account of its big windscreen and large windows, a good driving position and a well laid-out cabin with easy-to-use, intuitive controls. Everything’s perfectly utilitarian, the Fox eschewing confusing switches and gadgets. The Fox is also an agile little car, with a tiny turning circle and is really easy to park because the driver can see all the car’s corners. Bt as well as being one of the easiest cars on the road to drive, it also manages to be entertaining, nipping around town and buzzing along faster roads, cornering with precision and always feeling predictable and inspiring confidence.

Build Quality & Reliability

As we stated earlier, the Fox is clearly cheaply built in South America (which has echoes of the famous Beetle), but that doesn’t necessarily mean that this is a black mark against the car. The cabin has obviously been put together to a budget, with some hard plastics and synthetic materials covering the seats. That said, it’s a VW, so it looks more convincing than the cabins of many entry-level cars and it feels pretty hard wearing. One of the Fox’s big advantages is that it’s built on the same platform as the Polo and uses engines and transmissions that have been tried and tested, so prospects for reliability are very good. There’s also a 12-year anti-corrosion warranty, suggesting that VW has faith in the production quality of the car. Complex electronics and electrics have been kept to a bare minimum, so there's not much that can go wrong.

Safety & Security

It might come as a surprise that the cheaply built Fox was awarded four stars in the EuroNCAP crash tests, which is an impressive achievement. There’s a fair bit of safety kit on-board, including ABS brakes as standard, driver and passenger airbags, Isofix mounting points, seatbelt pre-tensioners and adjustable headrests on all four seats. It’s also possible to add side airbags, ESP and an electronic differential lock from the potions list. The Fox, in common with most Volkswagens, feels solidly built and certainly stands up to scrutiny compared to city cars and superminis in a similar price bracket. Its handling, wide track and low centre of gravity also give it a sense of stability, even on the motorway (we did a 300-mile round trip on a motorway in our test car and it felt perfectly safe at all times). Security kit includes an immobiliser and an alarm can be fitted as an option.

Space & Practicality

For a small city car, the Fox is surprisingly spacious. Up front, there’s enough headroom and shoulder room for adults of almost any size. In the rear it’s the same story: there’s only room for two, as there’s no central rear seat (the space between the two rear seats is filled with a plastic console and cupholders) but this ensures that two adults can sit side-by-side in comfort, and there’s also enough legroom, even if six-footers are sitting in the front. The Fox even has a decent-sized boot that beats the opposition into a cocked hat: the rear bench seat (which is split on the Urban Fox trim level as standard) folds flat and tumbles forward to provide a capacious 1,016 litres of luggage space. In terms of other storage space, there’s a compartment under the driver’s seat and pockets in the doors that can take 1-litre bottles.

Ownership & Value

The Fox is a cheap car to run, but it does suffer a little in comparison with newer rivals on the market. It’s been available to buy in the UK since 2006, and engine technology has certainly moved on since then, so the 144g/km (1.2-litre) and 159g/km (1.4-litre) figures for CO2 emissions look a long way off the pace of the C1/Aygo/107 (106g/km for their 1.0-litre unit). This puts the smaller-engined version in VED Band C (£120 per year) and the 1.4 into Band D (£145 per year). In terms of fuel economy, the figures are again decent, but some way off being class leading: the 1.2-litre returns 46.3mpg, with the larger 1.4-litre giving 42.2mpg. The Citroen/Toyota/Peugeot trio returns 62.8mpg. Insurance groups are about as cheap as it’s possible to get: Group 1 for the 1.2-litre and Group 2 for the 1.4.