Honestly this is absurd. These death machines shouldn’t be legal in europe. That thing doesn’t even fit in the parking space, even though the parking lot has the biggest spaces in the whole city. The Golf Polo is so small in comparison, it could even hide in front of the engine hood of the truck.
EDIT: It’s a Polo and not a Golf, I don’t know my cars, sorry for that!
Europe:
Golf towing capacity 1600kg
My SUV’s towing capacity 2400kg
And having towed with a manual Jetta I can confirm that only a moron would tow more than 500kg with a Golf and think they’re safe, and the Jetta is longer than the Golf so it’s actually more stable.
And yes, towing standards are more strict in North America (SAE J2807) vs Europe (determined by the manufacturer)
And concerning your manual vs automatic argument, Dodge Ram equipped with the Cummins had 1000lbs lower towing capacity with the manual transmission in 2018 (so under the SAE standard).