VW plans to phase out the combustion engine in 2026. Dieselgate has cost Volkswagen AG $33 billion and counting, sapping resources and forcing a complete reorientation of production strategy. VW developed the new GTI during an awkward transition period. The best GTI we have yet seen – the current Mk7 – may be the best we ever get, or at least the purest incarnation of the GTI’s initial vision. Changes, mild and drastic, will be afoot. You don’t know what you’re looking at with the GTI unless you know what you’re looking at. What flair the GTI does offer – the red grille lipstick, the tartan seats, the golf ball shift knob – is traditional. It has a clean exterior and an elevated interior. The GTI is subtle and understated, a car for adults. Other “hot” cars (the Honda Civic Type-R, for example) announce their presence like young rock stars, strutting around in the automotive equivalent of indescribably tight, red leather pants. You can park it easily, help a friend move and get a well-equipped base model for less than $30,000. Despite packing all that performance, the GTI is also still a Golf. Automobile writers have extolled the car’s handling with every synonym of the word “sublime.” It rounds corners masterfully. You can push the GTI on real roads at speeds that won’t see you carted away in handcuffs. With 228 horsepower and 258 lb-ft of torque, the GTI offers the exact power optimal for exuberant driving. It may be the best-balanced car on the road, not only for its price point. But, the Mk7 came out just right, capturing all of the car’s heritage and accrued wisdom. Some batches have been a touch weak, heavy or outmoded.
VW has refined that formula for 40-plus years.
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The GTI has a proven basic formula: precise handling, peppy engine with strong torque and a smooth manual transmission. It would make buying a standard Golf or any other Volkswagen, by definition, imperfect.
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Doing so would leave no reason to upgrade to the Golf R (raw power, burnt?). The trouble stems from VW not being able to touch on what the Mk7 GTI is: perfection. A brief sampling includes “the stylish hot hatchback” and “raw power, fully cooked,” whatever that means. VW has come up with some goofy catchphrases for the current GTI. The Mk1 version debuting in 1975 became an icon, birthing a new market segment for the “hot hatchback.” The latest and perhaps greatest GTI, the Mk7, should prove a collectors’ item in its own right.īuild Your 2019 Volkswagen GTI Browse Used MK7 GTIs: Here That brilliant creation became the Golf GTI. So, it took all of a few minutes before someone inserted a more powerful engine, tuned it for racing and stumbled upon something brilliant. It will bury the new Beetle, which, truth be told, was a Golf beneath its retro styling. The Golf has seen off all comers during a production run approaching 50 years. The well-regarded hatchback offers fun driving and practicality at an affordable price. The Volkswagen Golf, as James May noted in his BBC documentary series, is the preeminent people’s car.
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