The new Volkswagen Golf GTI is not electric and it’s not a hybrid, not even a mild one. In fact, it seems to carry on in much the same way it has done for nearly 50 years, being a simple but sensible take on the hot hatch that’s received incremental, pointed updates with every new generation and mid-cycle facelift. Viewed logically, this latest GTI should be the best there has yet been. Of course, the ‘new’ Golf GTI isn’t entirely new. The Mk8.5 is the updated version of the Mk8, which arrived in 2021 to hardly universal acclaim. It suffered from the Mk8 Golf’s general cabin tech problems, as well as a suspension tune that was uncharacteristically hardcore for what has always been a more grown-up take on the hot hatch. A face-off with the Toyota Corolla and Peugeot 308 showed that the standard Golf has returned to the top of the class – even if the Corolla won on penalties. Can the GTI manage the same? As with the standard Golf, the interior updates are subtle but significant and mainly concern the ease of use of the on-board tech (which we will look at in a moment). Elsewhere, the Golf GTI is still very much a Golf GTI. Manually adjustable (including the lumbar support) sports seats upholstered in tartan cloth remain standard. Black leather memory seats are an option, but the grey fabric with red accents brightens up an otherwise dark cabin and gives the GTI its unique character, so we would stick with the standard items. Tall drivers wished for more thigh support, but most testers found the seats very comfortable and supportive. A Golf, whether GTI or otherwise, is right in the middle of the class when it comes to interior space. Adults have adequate leg room in the back, and there’s no adventurously designed roofline to impinge on head room. The boot, too, is the same as that of a normal Golf, and the official volume figure of 377 litres arguably underrates it, because lifting the floor reveals a generous amount of additional storage space – enough, in fact, that Volkswagen is able to offer a spacesaver spare wheel as an option. General interior quality is much as before. Some scratchy plastics can be found, and we’re not exactly fans of the fingerprint-sensitive gloss black centre console, but all of this is quite typical for the class. Everything feels solidly built, though, and the main touchpoints are satisfyingly tactile. The touch-sensitive pads on the steering wheel – which were always too easy to activate by accident and yet too hard to operate deliberately – have gone in favour of standard buttons, like those the lower-rung Golf models always had. The central infotainment screen has grown substantially – from 10.0in to 12.9in – and is verging on the point of being too big, because it’s starting to encroach on forward visibility. At least the latest iteration of the software it runs, dubbed MIB4, works pretty well. Configurability is the name of the game here, so drivers will have to play around with it for the first week of ownership in order to settle on a layout they like, but after that it should become quite intuitive. There are two permanent shortcut bars now: one has climate control functions, including the heated seats, at the bottom; the other with customisable shortcuts at the top. The home screen can also be arranged to display the stuff that you find useful, and the same is true of the digital gauge cluster, making it one of the more successful applications of this tech. The physical touch bars for the temperature and media volume remain, but they now light up at night, and as before you don’t have to slide your finger across them: you can simply tap them like a button. There is one notable absence from the Mk8.5 Golf GTI’s interior, and it’s a golf ball-topped gearlever. The six-speed manual ’box has been dropped with the facelift (despite remaining available on lower-rung Golfs), leaving the seven-speed dual-clutch automatic as your only gearbox option. Only a fraction of buyers chose a three-pedal Mk8. Even when you consider that only the standard GTI was available with the manual ’box, that’s not very much, and it’s not good business to make cars that people aren’t going to buy. Even so, being auto-only certainly strips the GTI of a layer of driver involvement. With all that said, VW’s DSG dual-clutch ’box is, of course, very accomplished. Apart from some slight clunkiness during manoeuvring, it shifts quickly and smoothly, whether you’re taking control using the paddles (which are plasticky and too small) or leaving the gearbox in its automatic mode. Volkswagen’s EA888 2.0-litre petrol engine is a very well-known quantity by now, having seen service in everything from a VW Polo GTI to a Porsche Macan. It’s not the best-sounding, most characterful engine ever to grace an automobile, but it provides mostly lag-free performance over a wide band of revs and always feels eager. It burbles through the GTI’s twin tailpipes, and if you try hard enough you can elicit some pops on the overrun. That’s as it should be: a reward for driving it spiritedly, rather than just a way to annoy people in towns. Inevitably, there’s some digital augmentation through the speakers (you can make it more or less pronounced via the drive mode settings), but it enhances rather than changes the engine’s natural character and doesn’t sound overbearing or fake. We may lament the lack of a manual gearbox when it comes to engagement, but the combined effect of the 19bhp uplift for the updated GTI and the DSG’s rapid changes and launch control is that the 0-60mph sprint took 0.9sec less than it did in the manual pre-facelift car we timed in 2021. Where that car struggled to find traction off the line, the new version simply takes off with no drama and keeps ripping through the gears until it runs out of road. Indeed, it out-drags the Ford Focus ST we tested in 2019 (and which hasn’t had any powertrain upgrades since) in every metric and is hot on the heels of the mighty Honda Civic Type R. And that’s just the standard GTI: the Clubsport has an extra 34bhp and a more sporting tune to give it richer performance and added reserves. An optional Akrapovič sports exhaust can be ordered as part of the optional Race Package, bringing a harder and more determined exhaust note, with pops and crackles on the overrun to further heighten the driving experience. Braking performance is strong, too. The brakes suffered no notable fade in repeated stops from 80mph, and wet conditions added only about 10m to the overall stopping distance from 70mph. Pedal feel is good, with a bit of sneeze room at the top of the pedal’s movement and predictable response thereafter.
