Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport review: still the choice hot Golf to buy?

GTI Clubsport? Shouldn’t this have a roll cage and no soundproofing?

People haven’t been buying Golf GTIs since 1976 to get the most hardcore hot hatch. So no, the GTI Clubsport isn’t a stripped, slicked road-going touring car.

This car exists to fill the gap between the standard GTI (261bhp, £39k) and the four-wheel drive Golf R (326bhp, £44k).

This isn’t really a huge price gap, and especially now VW has deleted the manual gearbox from the base GTI, you might wonder why it’s bothered to slot a whole extra model – with bespoke bumper designs no less – into the range.

Facelift time then: headlines?

A worryingly small list. Apparently Volkswagen got feedback that all the matte black plastic in the Clubsport’s mouth didn’t look like it belonged on what’s now a £42,155 premium hot hatch, so it’s now switched to a toothier gloss black design. Still looks… like a whole lot of plastic, to us. More pleasing than the standard GTI to our eyes though.

There’s also a couple of handsome new 19-inch wheel designs. Erm. Ooh, yep. Slightly tweaked headlights. And – we can put this off no longer – no more power.

Yes, the long-serving EA888 2.0-litre turbo remains pegged at 300 metric horsepower, or 296bhp. As we get more and more used to dual-motor EVs with relentless traction though, it’s easy to forget that nailing 300 horsepower to the road via just two front wheels is a very serious engineering feat.

Will the Clubsport pull me into a ditch when the boost arrives?

No. There’s a very slick, polished-feeling way about how it puts its power down, exhibiting less wriggling, distracted torque-steer with 300PS than a Hyundai i30N did with 275. Ahh, the i30N. How you’re missed…

That’s a worthwhile point to make, in fact. When the GTI Clubsport first came along in 2021, there were all sorts of rivals snapping at its twin tailpipes. The Renaultsport Megane RS, and of course that brilliant upstart Hyundai.

Both are now gone. Dead. Ford’s unsung Focus ST isn’t long for this world. The undisputed king of front-drive wowzers remains the Honda Civic Type R, but at over £50,000 it’s more expensive than a Golf R, let alone this Goldilocks GTI. All of a sudden the GTI CS kinda has the playground to itself.

How fast is it?

Because it’s still DSG-only (with shorter, sprintier ratios than a boggo GTI) you can’t really mess up the getaway unless you overdo the wheelspin. Get it dialled just-so and you’ll go from 0-62mph in 5.6 seconds; a chunky 0.3s faster than the standard GTI. The top speed is a heady 167mph.

VW also talks of something called ‘turbo preloading’ which is supposed to keep the turbo on the boil when you lift off the throttle momentarily, so you don’t have to wait for the lag to subside next time you boot it.

[node:field_onward_journey_card-themed]

Truth be told, it’s a bit tricky to see what they’re on about. Throttle response is good, but not ‘wow, a VTEC!’ sharp.

Still, it makes Audi’s insistence that an S3 needs quattro all-wheel drive look over-cautious. Yes, in a gritty, greasy, grimy winter the ‘don’t-think-just-go’ ability of four-wheel drive is helpful. The GTI’s traction control light will flicker. That’s physics. But we lived with an old-shape Clubsport in the Top Gear Garage, and didn’t skid off into a hedge once.

Doing without AWD also means the car is around 5mpg more economical, and weighs a useful 89kg less, than a Golf R. Drive them back-to-back and you’ll feel this, in how the Clubsport stops and turns in, especially on a racetrack.

What else is new?

Praise be to all that is good and logical, the craptic, sorry, haptic steering wheel buttons have been banished from the GTI and GTI Clubsport. The steering wheel remains too thick and offers precious little feedback, but at least you can now go around a corner without skipping eight radio stations and summoning the voice control. Which is now supported by ChatGPT.

The infotainment has had a wholesale improvement and is now only ‘mildly irritating now and again’ as opposed to ‘unforgivable’. Progress!

We also like the way you can tailor the driving modes just-so: not just for the multi-adjustable ride if you spec £720 of adaptive dampers, but the noise too. It’s possible with enough tapping to separate sporty exterior noise and interior noise settings. So if you’re worried about being a considerate neighbour, you can choose to have engine noise piped inside while keeping the exhausts muffled. Very demure, very mindful. And no need to bother fitting the Akrapovic exhaust, as part of the £3k+ GTI Performance Package.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Top Gear (@topgear)

What improvements should Volkswagen have made?

We’d like more sense of occasion from the seats, which are doughy and too high in the car to feel properly sporty. The paddles are still risibly cheap feeling – a shame in a DSG-only car. 

Laugh-out-loud handling would’ve probably been a stretch: fast Golfs have rarely majored on being as exuberant as their rivals, preferring a stout, steady attitude to hot hatch motoring. The sort of hot hatch you can take home to meet your parents.

On a track with the ESP in Sport mode it’s a hoot, game for being trailbraked to get the rear light and agile and helping send it pointily through a corner. It’s always slick and composed though. It seems ever so slightly embarrassed to be wearing those low-slung chequered racing stripes.

Final thoughts?

Remember the Mk5 GTI? The car that got the GTI back on track? It had two-thirds the power of this one. That’s a reminder just how much poke this car has.

But it seems a shame that as the GTI enters what may be its final petrol iteration, Volkswagen has left something on the table here. This isn’t a car with the handbrake off and all the stops pulled out. It’s a little tweak to keep it fresh enough until the axe falls. We appreciate the snappier touchscreen. That was vital. We’d have liked a more tenacious front diff too – something to make the handling more memorable.

The longstanding issue for the Mk8 Golf is that the car that immediately preceded it was a superior all-rounder. Without a meaningful suite of changes, it’s difficult to judge this a worthwhile update.