“When I saw it for the first time, I didn’t even know it was new,” a Volkswagen executive told me as we stood beside the revised Golf. That’s  understandable. The midterm facelift of the Golf Mk VII is difficult to notice at first glance.
The front fascia is restyled to look more aggressive?and also to more closely resemble the smaller Polo, while new LED and halogen headlights accent the corners. The taillights, too, are amended LED units. But the real changes are under the skin. The U.S. market will see some of these changes after a one-year delay, which is better than the two years we had to wait before the seventh-generation model made its debut in this market for 2014.

Paint colors and interior fabrics are revised, and there is a thoroughly upgraded dashboard that packs a lot of fresh telematic and infotainment equipment. In Europe, the standard 6.5-inch and midlevel 8.0-inch center screens are complemented by a top-level 9.2-inch screen that can be operated with gestures, even from a distance. Also optional is full TFT instrumentation, similar to the Audi Virtual Cockpit found on the U.S.-market A4, Q7, R8, and TT. All of this is technology you’d expect to see in a luxury car, but we don’t yet know how much of it will be offered in the United States. The same is true of the multiple driver-assistance systems, such as adaptive cruise control that allows stop-and-go assistance at speeds up to 37 mph, pedestrian detection, and eve...