PETALING JAYA: The backdrop was agricultural, the dining was refreshingly different and the cars were all new.
VW in Malaysia organised on Nov 25 a get-together between the management and members of the media. It wasn't your typical media event held in a hotel or fancy restaurant in the city.
Instead, we had to travel to an out-of-the-way spot, some 100km away and a good 90-min drive.
Making the journey fast and smooth was the Arteon R-Line.
We picked up the Arteon in Puchong, Selangor and drove all the way to Sekinchan for the dining do.
Sekinchan, a coastal fishing village also in Selangor, is also known for its padi fields and migratory birds such as egrets, herons, harriers and storks.
At the start of this month, Volkswagen Passenger Cars Malaysia announced it would be bringing in the Golf Mk8 and its sportier sibling the Golf GTI.
The car company had begun inviting prospective customers to register their interest for the cars.
The standard Golf would be offered in R-Line specs.
Adding icing to the cake is the likelihood both model variants would be locally assembled, offering prospects potential five-digit ringgit savings.
Just so you know, the previous Golf Mk7.5 was retailing for around RM167,000 and the asking price for the Golf GTI was nearly RM240,000.
With Golf in the CKD programme, this would be a major milestone for VW's Pekan plant, as it gears up for series production of the hatches alongside the Passat, Arteon and Tiguan Allspace.
For VW fans, it has been a long wait for the eight-gen Golf, which made its world premiere in 2019. The Golf GTI showed up in late 2020.
The Golf cabin has been overhauled with practically all displays and controls being digital.
The dash and centre console are cleanly designed in both hatches with the infotainment screen angled towards the driver.
New instruments and online infotainment systems have been melded together into a display landscape featuring touch buttons and touch sliders while a heads-up display is also available as an optional extra.
Hopefully, the screen controls have been calibrated to be highly responsive to touch, as there's still advantages to having physical knobs and buttons in the interest of user-friendliness.
The Golf model line-up will feature the new IQ.LIGHT LED matrix headlights for improved visibility and safety.
Using a matrix of numerous LEDs in each headlight module, various and partly also interactive functions such as Dynamic Light Assist make driving in twilight or darkness even more convenient.
Alongside the Golf, this system is also used in the Touareg, Passat, Polo, Tiguan and Tiguan Allspace, the new Taigo, as well as the ID.3 and ID.4.
When pressed yesterday for a launch date, Volkswagen Passenger Cars Malaysia managing director Erik Winter would only say "soon" - which can be taken to mean next month or early 2022.
As for the unique setting for the get-together, it was hosted by the affable host of Ninja Private Kitchen, Zung Heng, a professional photographer who had decided to venture into offering "a dining experience" in the place where he grew up.
Guests tucked into a variety of local fish, squid and crabs in a small open-air area next to acres of padi fields as far as the eye could see.
As the sun began to set, the juxtaposition of two Golfs amid verdant fields of a cash crop and bales of hay made for a surreal impression.
READ MORE:
VW Golf Mk8
VW Golf GTI Mk8
VW Malaysia embraces digitalisation
Winter speaking to members of the media.
Zung Heng presenting a smorgasbord of seafood.
