First pics of the new Volkswagen Golf VI

The Volkswagen Golf is a trully great car, having withstood the test of time with a big success. We will soon see the sixth generation of the small german hatchback later this year, most probably in November when it will be introduced to the European markets. Officially, VW was planning on releasing the first pictures of this car on the 6th of August, but they haven’t really kept those images secure, a few leaked photos of the Volkswagen Golf VI having been released yesterday on the Internet.

At the first look, the Golf engineers seem pretty lazy, preferring to borrow a lot of ideeas from the Scirocco designers. The headlights are almost the same as the VW’s competitive coupe, the tail lights are from the Touareg and the rest of the design is pretty much the same as the last generation. Sure, maybe they worked a lot on the inside, you might think, well not that much, as we can see that a lot of the interior pieces are from the Scirocco. Not quite sure what was VW’s strategy with developing the sixth generation, probably thinking that the popularity which the 5th has enjoyed will be transfered to the new one without much stress. We’ll have to wait until November to see if this new generation will live up to the reputation which the Golf name entrusts to its cars.

Performance-wise, there are still quite a lot of rumours going around, on the base model we will be able to have quite a lot of engines to choose, from TSI and TFSI petrol engines to the TDI diesel units. We’ll see the GTI version in the late 2009, sporting a 2.0 TFSI engine capable of delivering 240 bhp, the top of the line R32 version will probably have Audi S3’s 2.0 TFSI engine that can offer 280 bhp.

We’re going to get more official photos on Wednesday, but full details will probably be available after the car’s debut at this year’s Paris Motor Show in October.

Check out more photos after the jump.

Photo Gallery: Volkswagen Golf VI leaked photos