The Corrado may have been a better drive than its Scirocco predeccessor, but Volkswagen is pinning its hopes on the older name being a more evocative lure when it comes to tempting young buyers away from hot hatches and even mini-MPVs.

The original Scirocco was, of course, a fastback coupe; its 21st century namesake is more of a sports hatch in the image of the new Volvo C30 and the old Lancia Beta HPE. Volkswagen’s thinking is that a long-roof hatchback body makes the Scirocco genuinely practical, and with a large, twin-depth boot and folding rear seats it could find itself on a small family’s shortlist alongside, say, a Renault Scenic.

But if all that sounds a little too worthy for the Scirocco to have true evo appeal, having spent a day with the Iroc concept, on which the finished car will be closely modelled, it’s clear that Volkswagen has a crowd pleaser in the looks department. Designer Rüdiger Folten promises that the production variant, the design of which has now been signed off, ‘will look just like the Iroc, with just a few millimetres difference here, a few there’. That’s good news because the Iroc boasts plenty of visual menace. With its squat, wide-hipped, four-square stance and aggressive nose treatment, it looks more than capable of taking the fight to the Audi S3 and Volvo C30, both of which are likely to be in the Scirocco’s sights when it goes on sale in the latter part of 2008.

The Scirocco’s cabin won’t be as radical as the Iroc’s, though. Folten talks enthusiastically of the Scirocco heralding a new era in production-car interior materials (the Iroc goes heavy on the brightly coloured neoprene) but then confesses that the undercarriage of the facia will be based on that of the mk5 Golf for budgetary reasons and will therefore have an air of the familiar about it.

Budgetary constraints will doubtless also rule out the Iroc’s neat alloy-lozenge door handle that, when you touch it, is propelled outwards by electric motors to greet you. And the concept car’s competition-style front seats don’t seem destined for production, either. However, the amount you have to duck down to get in is enough to persuade your subconscious that you’re entering a sports car, while a quick glance at the individual rear seats confirms that this isn’t your regular family hatchback.

The Iroc’s triple twin-spoke steering wheel is homage to that in the original Scirocco, and Folten says that the engineers are working on a way to incorporate an airbag into it. What you wouldn’t have found in the old, though, was a starter button, here lurking down by the lever for the DSG transmission. Prod the button and you’re rewarded by a burst of lively, crackling sound, the aural timbre of which neatly disguises the fact that the engine's capacity is just 1.4 litres.

It’s no ordinary 1.4, though, but the ‘Twincharger’ (turbocharged and supercharged) unit from the Golf GT, which for this application is tuned for 210bhp. We don’t have much space in which to play with it, but it accelerates fiercely, in a manner that does justice to the car’s looks.

Ride and handling? Who knows; the Iroc is a hand-built show car with sludgy steering and suspension designed purely to keep its belly from scraping along the ground. But the dynamics of the current Golf GTI (and the Eos convertible/coupe with which the Scirocco will share its floorpan and manufacturing facility) show that Volkswagen has the ability to make serious drivers' cars. That being the case, the Scirocco’s future seems bright, especially if the estimated starting price of around £18,000 holds true.