Driven: VW's Golf GTI Clubsport on track

You can feel the aero working, yes?!” Shouts the race instructor as we fling ourselves around the final right-hander of Portugal’s sinuous Portimão Circuit. Honestly? No. I can’t feel the aero working. Mainly because this final turn before the main straight is yet another unsighted crest-and-fall filled with slightly panicked commitment, and the speed is well into the hundreds. The instructor is mounted in a VW Golf R and has the surety of all-wheel drive. I’m in the new Golf Clubsport and can feel the front differential straining as it tries to apportion enough torque to just two driven front wheels. Understeer is nibbling at the edges of perception, the steering’s vector a sly indicator of my rising worry that the Clubsport might not – quite – have enough room to scribe the required line.

“Er. Yes?” I mumble into the radio, slightly desperate not to disappoint, but even more desperate not to violently park one of the only three CSs currently in existence into a Portuguese retaining wall. I trust, and keep my foot in. There’s a wriggle, a low, mournful moan of partially flayed rubber, and the little Golf fires down the main straight like a dirty tungsten-coloured bullet, exhaust happily roaring defiance at the empty grandstands. It’s good, this. Even though I can’t feel the aero.

Photography: Tom Salt

This feature was originally published in the February 2016 issue of Top Gear magazine.

Portimão, as it turns out, is probably one of the best circuits on which to test a hot hatch, a tiring tarmac epic of elevation change and fumbling blind crests. The kind of place where – if you are equipped with the kind of goldfish memory that I appear to be blessed with – every corner is a surprise even when you’ve been around it several times. And a hot hatch should help you in this kind of situation, be friendly, rapid and fun.

Thank the good Lord, then, that we’re here in a Golf GTI and not in some gleefully lethal supercar. But the Golf Clubsport is no ordinary icon-variant. It’s a bit better than that.

Some history first: 2016 sees the 40th birthday of the ‘GTI’ name and, as is traditional in VW circles, a special edition celebration was deemed necessary. But instead of Edition 40, we get this, the Clubsport. Specifications are as you might expect: more power, more bodykit, changes to suspension and electronics.

Oh, and surprisingly tasteful and attractive graphics. Pitched exactly between the Golf GTI Performance Pack and Golf R in terms of price, it lists at somewhere in the region of £28 and a bit grand, and puts out 261bhp from the usual 2.0-litre turbo four – a decent chunk more than the PP’s 227bhp and an ego-salving distance to the top-dog R’s 295bhp. Except for the fact that the CS features an ‘overboost’ function that allows for 287bhp for 10 seconds when the throttle is at the floor. There’s then another 10secs rest period before the full complement can be accessed again, but in practical terms, if you’re pressing on in the real world – or indeed on a twisty track – the car puts out the max in most situations.

Which means I’ve not really had much trouble keeping up with the R-mounted instructor, even if a lot of my commitment is based on the fact that he’d get into a load of trouble if he actually allowed me to die. There are other reasons. First, it’s probably worth pointing out that the CS is mounted on the semi-slick, optional and ‘dry-biased’ Cup 2 tyres, it’s 20°C, and Portimão is smooth and flowing.

Second, the CS has been variously lowered, stiffened and had its XDS+ front differential retuned to make the most of the abundant power, power that is, to all intents and practical purposes, only about 10bhp shy of the Golf R.

It’s quick, no doubt. But better than that, this is a GTI that feels really eager. It’s R-punchy at the bottom of the rev range and happy and free at the top, noticeably more so than the PP Golf. The new exhaust helps cement the impression, being louder and more aggressive in tone, if not obnoxious, and through corners there’s something less inherently technical-feeling about a purely front-wheel-drive hatch. Yes, you can feel the systems over-speeding and doping various wheels to try to balance the car when you find yourself over-committed, but there’s still a good deal of silliness to be had without fear of the multiple g-forces of crashy recrimination.

The same basic grammar of the GTI, but with a slightly rougher accent. You can even get the inside rear wheel lifting if you go hard enough, and there’s a half-turn of opposite lock to be had on cold tyres if you turn the wrong way over a blind crest into a right-hand corner that has mischievously turned into a heavy left since the last lap, though to be honest that requires the kind of driving style-stroke-stupidity that you’d never employ on a road.

Outside, you get – to my eyes, at least – a very good-looking hot hatch. Not overplayed but obviously with a few aesthetic nudges. There’s a new front bumper that sports a deeper splitter framed by vertical ‘air curtains’ that channel air around the front wheels. New side skirts join front to back, and there’s a reprofiled rear bumper with ever so slightly larger-diameter exhaust pipes. To finish off, above the rear windscreen sits a neat little upturned spoiler, neatly bracketing the familiar Golfish profile. On three- or five-door variant, the overall effect is lightly excellent. Slightly more aggressive, without falling into caricature.

Now, as mentioned previously, VW suggests these changes actually provide proper aerodynamic downforce, and I have no doubt that they provide some sort of measurable pressure. But, given that I have driven cars with actual downforce, and their air-punishing addenda tend to be much more obvious, I have to suspect that the Golf’s raw pressure numbers are minute. When pushed on actual figures, VW’s assertion that the Clubsport produces ‘some’ downforce allowed my inability to feel it a bit of relief.

So. The big question is whether this is an R-lite or a Super-PP. And the answer, based on what we know (track, warm, optional tyres), is a massive cop-out: it’s a bit of both. I suspect on a real road with leaves and dieselly spills and bumps and normal tyres, the Clubsport will still be slightly slower than a straight Golf R. It has enough power to spin wheels in tight, slow corners where the R simply squats and pulls, and there’s a much edgier feel to the extremities than a boringly brilliant straight GTI.

Of course, at £29k and 261/287bhp, the CS is slap-bang in the middle of a very competitive sector, but when you take into account the fact that it looks great, goes like stink and is still a remarkably grown-up package, there’s a lot to be said for it. It will also only be produced for a few months – VW reckons it’ll only manage a couple of thousand units – and on that basis, though not exactlyrare, it’ll always be an interesting and desirable hot hatch. The best of the GTIs? Yes. Without doubt. But not quite enough to score a win over UK B-road don the Golf R on a real road. We’ll have to drive them both back-to-back to make sure, mind. Can’t wait.