Volkswagen Virtus GT Review: Enthusiast Family Guys Assemble!

The Volkswagen Virtus is a compact sedan that shares its platform with the Skoda Slavia. It is priced between Rs 11.55 lakh and Rs 19.39 lakh (ex-showroom), and rivals the Honda City and Hyundai Verna. Unlike its rivals that have a special focus on comfort, the Virtus stands out as a car for the petrolhead with its strong performance and poised handling manners. But in doing so, does it ask too big of a sacrifice on the qualities that make up a quintessential family vehicle?

Design

The Virtus’ design is a perfect example to show that you don’t need a connected lighting setup or over the top styling to make a car look attractive. Its design language is simple with an European sophistication that exudes both sportiness and class. The former is even more highlighted in this latest avatar, which gets a chrome delete all around. 

With those black elements, the Virtus does have a mean look going on, but if that’s not to your taste and you still want a little bit of bling, then you can still have that chrome in the GT Plus variants. 

The blacked out 16-inch alloy wheels with the red calipers behind continue the sporty theme. However, I feel that there’s potential to make the car even more attractive, without a lot of effort. If you see, its 179mm of ground clearance is great to tackle the Indian surfaces masking as ‘roads’. So it rides a bit high, especially from the rear. This stance could be easily improved with bigger 17-inch alloys and slightly lower ride height. Just imagine!

The rear styling leans more towards the simpler side of things, but you still get hints of sportiness from its bootlip spoiler and smoked effect on the taillamps. I just wish VW didn’t hide the exhaust tips underneath the bumper, because you get two of them. And everybody loves dual exhaust tips!

Overall, Virtus’ low-key styling strikes the right balance between subtle and sporty looks, which should be palatable for your family – right from the youngest member to the eldest one.

Boot space

It’s only natural to expect a good boot space from a sedan, and with 521-litres of on-paper space, the Virtus doesn’t disappoint. Its loading lip isn’t too high, which makes loading and unloading easy. This is a very important thing because when needed, the Virtus can gobble up quite the luggage, including one small, medium and large suitcase, along with a couple of duffle and laptop bags.

So your family’s weekend getaways are sorted, and you can additionally store more or bigger items by folding the rear seats which have a 60:40 split.

Interior

The sporty demeanor of the GT Plus Sport’s cabin is very apparent with its all black theme and red inserts. There are other dual tone options available as well with other variants, which feel more airy and welcoming, but it’s not like there’s any scarcity in terms of space. 

In terms of the overall cabin experience, you miss that outright premium feel that you would expect from a car costing north of Rs 20 lakh on road. The fit and finish is hard to fault, everything feels solid, but it’s the quality of materials selected that could’ve been better. For starters, the entirety of the dashboard is made of up hard plastics, and you only get soft touch leatherette on the seats, central and door armrest along with a nice perforated leatherette on the steering wheel. Making matters worse is the fact that the plastic feels scratchy at some places, which could’ve and should’ve been given a smoother finish.

Shifting focus to the seats, they feel comfortable and supportive for all kinds of frames. The sides supports hug and hold you in place, but still don’t feel intrusive. Finding a sporty or a comfortable driving position is easy, thanks to tilt and telescopic steering adjustment and the height adjustable seat. 

Practicality

In terms of cabin practicality, the Virtus gets all the right storage spaces. All four doors have 1-litre bottle pockets, while you can store your drinks in the two cup holders in the central console. Moreover, they get a rubber base which secures your drink. The wireless charging pad can be used to store stuff like a wallet when not in use, and if needed, the glovebox is always there to store bigger stuff. It has a wide opening and decent enough stowage capacity, however, it doesn’t get a cooling function.

The central armrest has a small cubby hole tucked away underneath. The rear occupants can use the seat back pockets to store their documents or tablets, while their cupholders can be stored in the rear central armrest. For charging, there are four type-C ports, equally distributed between the front and rear, while the central tunnel also has a 12V socket for your accessories. 

Rear Seats

The Virtus’ second row is a comfortable space as long as you seat two people under the height of 6 feet. If you plan to use it for your parents, you should note that the vehicle isn’t as tall as a regular SUV. As a result, you have to duck down a little more to get inside. But the good thing is that the rear seat itself is placed a little higher, which does make overall ingress and egress a little easier.

Seating three people here will be a squeeze because the middle backrest protrudes out a bit and the central tunnel also eats into the comfort and footroom of the middle passenger. But for two people, there’s no scarcity of space. Two six footers can sit back to back with ease and still have room to stretch your feet with an adequate amount of underthigh support on offer. Although, they won’t appreciate the available headroom, which could have been better for taller people.

In terms of seat comfort, the cushioning is on the firmer side, which will feel comfortable on long journeys, while the supports are aggressive so they hold you well too.

Features

Volkswagen has given the Virtus constant updates ever since its launch in 2022, and as a result, its features list is right up to date with the competition. It covers all the basic functional features, along with a few premium ones, which include dual digital screens, ventilated and powered front seats, sunroof, keyless entry and push button start/stop. Let’s run through the execution of the highlights:

10.25-inch infotainment system: The system works as it should – lag and glitch free. It gets wireless Android Auto and AppleCarPlay, which is easy to connect. It has crisp graphics and a nice resolution as well.

8-inch digital driver’s display: It’s a simple digital driver’s display with crisp graphics and multiple view modes. It’s easy to use and relays a bunch of information in a clear manner.

Ventilated seats: Surprisingly, the effectiveness of the ventilated seats falls short of expectations, that too even during the cooler months of November-December. While the Verna has three levels to its functioning, the Virtus’s ventilated seats only offers two levels to choose from. Moreover, if there’s no music playing in the car, you can clearly hear the fan function on level-2, which shouldn’t be the case.

Auto AC: While there are no complaints on the effectiveness of the AC itself, the touch sensitive control panel is hard to use while on the go. There are no physical knobs or dials to switch the temperature setting, so you need to deviate your attention from the road and onto the panel just for this simple task. 

Compared to the segment, the Virtus only misses out on 360-degree camera and ADAS features. The absence of the latter is actually okay, because in the Indian scenario, these features usually feel more stressful rather than being useful. You really need the ideal scenario to make full use of it, and until and unless you are going to travel extensively on well-marked expressways, you won’t miss this feature.

Safety

Especially because despite the omission of ADAS, the Virtus had scored a full five star rating in the Global NCAP crash test. In terms of features, the standard kit of the Virtus is generous with six airbags and a host of electronic aids. The highlights of the top-spec variants include brake disk wiping and a reversing camera with sensors.

Everything is good in terms of the safety aspect, save for the quality of the reversing camera. Not only is it poor, but it is so bad that a car costing half the price offers you a better feed and display. The Virtus’s display doesn’t even get dynamic guidelines. With all its incremental updates, Volkswagen should also have improved the execution of this feature. 

Performance

The Virtus is available with two turbo petrol engine options, and we drove the bigger one paired with the dual clutch manual transmission. In terms of driveability, this engine and gearbox combination won’t give you any reasons to complain, be it in terms of refinement, smoothness or performance. 

It feels smooth in bumper to bumper traffic, and picks up speed from lower RPMs without any trouble. You’ll barely ever feel a gearshift in normal city driving conditions, but when you want a quick response from the gearbox for a quick overtake, it drops the gear down quickly and without any real delay. The transmission gets a sport mode as well, wherein it holds on to higher RPMs and is keen to shift down quickly whenever required. 

There’s a manual mode as well, and you can take over control via the paddle shifters behind the steering wheel. I just wish these paddles had a better (maybe metallic) finish to them, after which using them would be even more fun. 

The engine’s highway performance is more than adequate. It’s happy to cruise at triple digit speeds all day long, and has enough oomph to make a quick overtake at that pace as well. In terms of fuel efficiency, however, this engine isn’t all that impressive as it returned a figure of 12kmpl on our test run within the city.

Things improved significantly on the highway with an efficiency of 18kmpl, and you can thank its cylinder deactivation technology for that. In simple words, whenever you’re cruising or coasting, the system shuts two of the engine’s cylinders, which helps improve efficiency. As a result, this bigger and more powerful engine is more fuel efficient than the smaller 1-litre unit.

We have driven the 1-litre unit on a previous occasion, and despite the performance drop, it still is good enough for city and relaxed highway usage. But of course, it isn’t as smooth, refined, powerful, and efficient as the bigger engine, which remains our recommended choice if you’re not on a budget.

Ride and handling

The Virtus’ fun to drive character is not just a courtesy of its engine performance, but also an extension of its suspension setup. In search of thrills around a corner, it is set up on the stiffer side, but that doesn’t equate to a direct compromise in ride comfort. Sure, the ride isn’t as plush as a regular compact SUV, and the sharper bumps can be felt inside the cabin. But overall, it is still well damped and won’t give you reasons for grouses. 

It soaks up the regular speedbreakers and potholes fairly well. In fact, the long suspension travel lets it absorb the deeper potholes too, preventing any jarring sounds or throwing the occupants around the cabin. Highway stability is impressive too, especially in the way it remains composed and planted at high speeds or during high speeds lane changes. Show it a corner and the Virtus will happily obey all your inputs while giving you confidence at the same time. It genuinely is fun to drive and the controlled body roll also means you can enjoy driving it in the hills with your family!

Verdict

In today’s day and age where the thought of an electric vehicle is getting more tempting by the day, the Virtus remains one of those few cars that actually build a connection, a relationship with you. From the way it looks to the way it drives – the Virtus evokes an intangible sensation that immediately wins your heart. 

It sure is far from perfect with an interior which could make use of better materials, and the rear seat experience, which is only comfortable and accommodating enough for two average sized people. But it gets all the features right and boasts a safety package that’s proven. 

But qualities like features, practicality and safety are all bonus additions to the Virtus’ defining characteristic, which remains to be its fun to drive factor. But the best part is, it balances those qualities that make up a quintessential family vehicle rather well too. 

So if you want a car that will fuel the fire of an enthusiast within you, but also cater to the needs of your family at the same time, then you can definitely consider bringing the Virtus home. In case you can’t afford the 1.5-litre variants, even the smaller 1-litre variants offer you a good dynamic and safety package, despite the drop in performance.