VW Golf GTI: Review by The Times

The Times has a nice review of the new VW Golf GTI with the conclusion that VW remembered what GTI stands for.

What does GTI mean? Nobody knows for sure how a car that was devised by a group of Volkswagen engineers in their spare time and known as the “Sport Golf” got the name GTI. The suffix GT was already commonplace in 1975 but the “I”? Injection? The fastest version of the then new Golf hatchback was the first Volkswagen with fuel injection but the German for injection is einspritzung. So that’s not it. Perhaps it just sounded right.

The mysterious name heralded a new class of car — the hot hatchback. The success of its first GTI took Volkswagen by surprise. It intended to produce a special edition of just 5,000 cars but by the mid-1980s was making 5,000 a month. Other manufacturers showed no shame in copying the name for their faster models.

Of these new hot hatches, the Golf GTI is the best. It is fast — dashing from 0-62mph in 6.9sec and reaching 145mph — and foolproof, with very high levels of cornering grip and ESP electronic stability control to save embarrassment when they are exhausted. I am qualified to say this because I drove it on streaming wet roads in France and on the similarly drenched test track at Le Castellet.

Whatever it meant to begin with at Volkswagen, GTI today stands for a quick hatchback with great capability and surprising refinement. Today’s buyer is likely to be older than his counterpart of the 1970s and demand something more rounded and sophisticated than simply a warmed-up version of a small family car. Once, Volkswagen didn’t appreciate that enough but now it has learnt — and learnt well.