Here's Your First Look At The VW Golf 8 Estate

If you’re thinking of buying a crossover, don’t. A Golf estate (or Variant as it’s known in some markets) is all the car you could ever need from a practicality standpoint, and VW is working on an all-new one. Huzzah!

Following on from the Golf 8 - revealed late last year - the wagon version will add more rear-end overhang, giving a much larger boot. As seen from these new spy shots, the rest of the car won’t deviate from its five-door hatch brother at all.

Luggage space for the last Golf estate was 605 litres (1620 litres with the rear seats folded flat) - 225 litres more than the hatch. We’d expect that to be matched at least, and we’re also anticipating some handy storage solutions in there.

Much of the Golf 8’s engine line-up will be carried over unchanged. That means 1.0 and 1.5-litre petrol engines, a 2.0-litre TDI diesel in various states of tune, and at least one plug-in hybrid. The base 201bhp PHEV feels like a shoo-in, but the 242bhp GTE hybrid seems less likely - its less powerful predecessor was only available as a hatchback.

At the spicier end of the spectrum, there should be a 329bhp Golf R wagon, and hopefully a 196bhp, 295lb ft GTD estate too. For hashtaglifestyle types, VW may choose to make another lifted ‘Alltrack’ version.

As with a lot of cars in development right now, there’s a bit of a question mark over when the car will make its debut. We’d originally anticipated a 2020 debut, although due to the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic for the automotive industry, the Golf estate’s moment in the sun might not arrive until early 2021.