Blast off!
A sport hatchback with go-kart handling
Except for the Cuisinart rims and the sunshiny Tornado Red paint job, the Golf GTI looks like a garden-variety hatchback from 10 metres away. Get behind the wheel, though, and it’s a sports-carin-training, a tonic for those who consider driving well an art, not a chore and — for those of us with long memories — an old, familiar friend.
Seven generations in and the quintessential hot hatch is still the puppy that wants to scamper. Oh, it’s put on a lot of weight over the 30-plus years it has been sold in North America, but it has compensated for the avoirdupois by more than doubling the power of the original über-Rabbit.
The tartan-pattern sport seats and the golf-ball shift knob are a kind nod to the faithful, as is the fact that a six-speed manual is still offered, though the DSG manumatic and its paddle shifters is a necessary concession to the video game-addled younger crowd.
Yet it’s that six-speed manual, mated with the GTI’s EA888 2.0-litre turbocharged, direct-injected fourcylinder that’s a marriage made in heaven. Now, 210 horsepower and a healthy 258 pound-feet of torque do not a missile make. But people, the GTI is not about knocking off zeroto-100s — the all-wheel-drive Golf R and its 292-hp turbo four can carry VW’s banner for that duty — it’s about balance, comfort, refinement and a playfulness that is so beyond the common it should be patented.
Unless you’re a complete klutz when synchronizing clutch foot and shift hand, the GTI has the ability to make you feel, if not like a superhero, at least one with the car. And it’s not as if this hatchback is a wimp. Though the DSG-fitted version is a tenth or a second or two faster, the manual version will still hit 100 km/h in seven seconds, and pull off an 80-to-120 passing move in four. And it doesn’t run out of breath at higher revs, either, and has a robust exhaust note.
Making play time extra special is the new driving mode selection feature. There are three modes to choose from — Normal, Sport and Individual. Normal and Sport have a different steering weight and throttle response, while Individual allows the driver to alter the steering and throttle to his or her own liking.
I found Normal quite acceptable for most driving conditions, switching to Sport when a set of curves appeared and the road was clear. Though slightly larger in size than its predecessor, the 2015 GTI is 30 or so kilograms lighter. It also has a lower centre of gravity and an aggressive stance, helped by a sport suspension that lowers the carby about 10 millimetres compared with a regular Golf.
For all of the praise heaped on the GTI for its roadworthiness, though, it isn’t a racetrack warrior. As was discovered last year during Driving’s test of six “road rockets under $30K” at Calabogie Motorsports Park, the DSG-equipped VW, in the words of Driving managing editor Derek McNaughton, “got befuddled, its tail wagging left and right under hard braking, the traction control stepping in early and not being able to completely disengage as the car flung about into the bends. The extra 51 lb.-ft. of torque over the sixth-gen GTI is definitely a plus, but the GTI felt more like a Grand Tourer than a track star.”