The BBC TopGear Magazine names Two Volkswagen products as the best of models.

Volkswagen is celebrating an impressive brace of titles in TopGear Magazine’s latest issue which names the very best cars in the world.

TopGear declares the Volkswagen Golf ‘All The Car You’ll Ever Need’, while the Volkswagen up! is named ‘Best First Wheels’ by the influential motoring brand.  

Praising the Volkswagen hatchback that has dominated its class for more than four decades, the magazine said: “A Golf. Short of needing seven seats or some genuine off-road ability, those two words can answer just about any car requirement you care to throw our way.”

With comfortably more than 30 million produced over the car’s 42-year history, the Volkswagen Golf retains its classless appeal and enduring reputation for quality, reliability and effortless competence.  Upwards of two million Golfs have been sold in the UK to date, and roughly one in three new Volkswagens sold here last year bore the name Golf.

The most extreme iteration of the current Golf – the sold-out GTI Clubsport S – was recently described by TopGear thus: “There’s no denying how quick it is, but the GTI is also incredibly tactile and approachable for a hardcore front-wheel-drive hatch.”

Meanwhile the recently revised Volkswagen up! carries off the ‘Best First Wheels’ title with its potent mix of style, functionality and value.

Today’s up! remains one of the five key pillars of the Volkswagen portfolio in the UK alongside new Tiguan, Polo, Golf and Passat, and the car has been a consistent sales performer in the UK since its launch here in 2012.

In the UK, the new car is offered with a choice of two petrol engines offering three engine outputs: a naturally aspirated three-cylinder 12-valve petrol engine with outputs of either 60 PS or 75 PS, or a new three cylinder turbocharged 1.0 TSI petrol unit with 90 PS.

TopGear said of it: “The up! doesn’t really feel like a baby car: it’s refined and has supple suspension and runs true on motorways.”

Welcoming the brace of important titles for two of Volkswagen’s most popular models Alison Jones, Director of Volkswagen UK, said: “For both the Golf and the up! to be recognised in this way by the experts at TopGear is a really strong result. 

“With the prospect of the revised Golf, and much else besides, to look forward to next year I’m hopeful that we can continue to celebrate Volkswagen awards successes such as this throughout 2017.” 

Fiesta overtakes the Escort as the UK's best selling vehicle.

• Ford Fiesta ranks as the UK’s best-selling vehicle ever in the UK, exceeding 4,115,000 sales since 1976
• Fiesta now overtakes the Ford Escort, the previous record holder, with 4,105,961 registrations
• Ford celebrates Fiesta’s sales success at the Commonwealth Games starting today, where it is official vehicle sponsor

The Ford Fiesta became the UK’s best-selling vehicle nameplate of all time this month when total sales topped 4,115,000.

First launched in 1976, the Fiesta has led the small car segment in the UK for 27 of the 37 years and has been Britain’s best-selling car since 2009 when it overtook the Ford Focus.

This month it surpassed the historic record of the Ford Escort which sold 4,105,961 in the 32 years it was on sale in the UK from 1968 through to 2000.

Ford has added its cherished “FMC1” registration to a Fiesta destined for Scotland for the Commonwealth Games to mark the UK favourite’s landmark achievement.  Netball competitor Sasha Corbin, one of Ford’s athlete ambassadors, chose a Ford Fiesta for the Games – one of the 1,120 Fords supporting the event in Scotland this month.

Mark Ovenden, Ford Britain chairman and managing director, said: “The Ford Fiesta has gone from strength to strength and today’s car combines style, value, driving dynamics and remarkable technologies such as the multi-award-winning 1.0-litre EcoBoost engine. It continues to outsell its nearest retail competitor by more than two to one – and that really tells the story of this extraordinary car.”

UK-based engineers at Ford’s research and development centre at Dunton, in Essex, and at Ford’s Dagenham Diesel Centre, in East London, develop all powertrains for the Ford Fiesta. Dunton Technical Centre is home to Ford’s latest technical masterpiece – the EcoBoost range, including the 1.0-litre named International Engine of the Year for an unprecedented third consecutive year.  The 1.6-litre EcoBoost engine that powers the hot Fiesta ST is manufactured at the Bridgend Engine Plant, South Wales.

Dagenham Diesel Centre specialises in the engineering and production of high-tech, low CO₂ diesel engines for virtually all of Ford’s line-up of cars and commercial vehicles, across Europe and beyond, including the new 1.5-litre TDCi diesel for Fiesta. 

Technical progress since the original Fiesta was introduced is a step-change. For example, it would now take more than 80 modern-day Fiestas to generate the NOx emissions of a single 1976 Mk1 model. This first-generation Fiesta, with the 46PS four-cylinder 950cc petrol engine, weighed around 800kg and achieved 37.7mpg, with CO₂ emissions of almost 150g/km.  Today’s fully-equipped model, with the 1.0-litre 100PS EcoBoost engine, weighs nearly 1,100kg, yet boasts a combined fuel economy of 65.7mpg and just 99g/km CO₂ emissions.

More than 40 per cent of  Fiesta buyers in the UK today choose the turbo-charged 1.0-litre EcoBoost engine, and almost 90 per cent opt for higher level specification – Zetec, Zetec S, Titanium, Titanium X and ST models with the Ford SYNC voice-controlled connectivity system. 

The most popular Ford Fiesta series in Britain is the Zetec, priced at £12,945, and features MyKey (limiting vehicle speed and audio volume for novice drivers), radio/CD with USB connection, remote central locking, electrically operated front windows, electrically operated and heated door mirrors, air conditioning, Hill Launch Assist, seven airbags, Electronic Stability Programme and headlight courtesy delay.