ALL good things have to come to an end and so it was when I handed back the keys of the VW Golf BlueMotion I had been running for the last six months.
It's bad news for a motoring hack when little goes wrong during an extended test but it's the reverse for the owner-buyer who inevitably wants an easy life, untroubled by breakdowns, spluttering engines and unreliability.
Just to recap, the '58 Golf wore a price tag of £16,775 last year when I received it with just a handful of miles on the clock. As a medium sized hatchback representative in the ultra-economy market with meagre CO2 emissions of 119g/km I was expecting pretty frugal running. But experience had taught me to be sceptical, particularly of the official combined economy figures.
In the case of the Match BlueMotion, it was said to be 62.8mpg with an urban figure of 48.9mpg. Time and time again when driving a range of so-called green cars and hybrids, I had fallen short of these notional statistics. Maybe it was my driving, I began thinking but then discovered other testers had the same experience.
So, it was with some surprise that after getting through the initial 500 or so gentle miles and starting to press on, that I was regularly turning in over 60mpg during 'normal' running. Most impressive was a 50 mile drive into the capital which included 70mph motorway cruising and 10 miles of inner-city congestion with the result of 63mpg. A similar run in a well-known hybrid saw a consumption of 8mpg worse.
Among the BlueMotion tweaks to squeeze those extra miles out of every gallon, are low rolling resistance tyres, a smoothed-out under-carriage for better aerodynamics, lower ride height and an indicator to advise when best to change gear. In theory, the 55-litre tank could allow you travel, over 750 miles, although I never quite achieved that.
The really good thing about the Golf is that it doesn't feel like an economy car. The 1.9-litre turbodiesel engine has bags of torque for overtaking and even the outright acceleration of 0-62mph in 11 seconds is pretty useful. Top speed nudges towards 120mph, making it a real all-purpose family car. Thankfully, only a couple of discreet silver and blue badges front and rear differentiate the BlueMotion from the normal TDI.
Parting came at a few miles under 5,000, during which time nothing broke, fell off or rattled and apart from the occasional visit to a garage to refuel with diesel, it needed no attention and less than a pint of oil.
Of course, the Mark V Golf has now been replaced with the Mark VI series and with it has come some genuine improvements such as a greater refinement, even better build quality and still greater economy, although we are yet to see the new BlueMotion version.
I have to say, though, that I prefer the easy-to-use heating and air-con switchgear of 'my' Golf to that of the latest car.
Sadly, owners of the BlueMotion were never able to benefit from the proposed free Congestion Zone pass for sub-120g/km cars that London's ex-mayor was planning. Nevertheless they would be able to revel in the knowledge that they were running a truly green car - albeit with 'blue' badge - and chalking up a minimal fuel bill.
Whatever the Golf lacked in excitement, it made up for in ease of transport, frugality and good old common sense. It will be sadly missed.