Volkswagen Golf GTI - long-term review

Versatility is the word of the month for our GTI. In the space of a few weeks this small, everyday hatchback has served as a removal van, track car, commuter pod, mobile wardrobe, heatwave refuge and a small rolling enquiry into whether the Germans have quietly lost their German-ness.

Short of crossing an Arctic tundra or towing a horsebox, it has done most of the things ordinary people use cars for in ten years in the space of weeks. Which is precisely the point of a GTI. Or more of a reflection of my chaotic life.

The Golf’s boot is, in the most Golf possible way, entirely normal. Officially it is 374 litres with the rear seats up, which means it is not cavernous, but it is square, usable and blessedly free from hybrid batteries. There is also a small amount of hidden space under the boot floor around the optional space-saver spare wheel (£315), which is where I have stored hiking boots and a coat, partly because I like to appear outdoorsy and partly because I have watched enough survival programmes to know that preparedness is mostly about having the right footwear. Especially if you get a puncture.

Take out the flimsy, cardboardy parcel, drop the rear seats and you get around 1,270 litres of space. The seats do not fold completely flat which is annoying, but if you are good at packing Tetris you can get a surprising amount in. And by “surprising amount” I do not mean in theoretical litres. I mean: one bicycle with the front wheel removed, two large cardboard boxes and several enormous IKEA-style bags filled with the weird final debris of a flat move.

The problem was that, while the Golf was being used as a van, I also had to go to the Top Gear test track. And if you arrive at the Top Gear test track in a Golf GTI full of domestic rubble, there is only one morally correct thing to do: empty it immediately and do some laps.

This is where the Golf’s duplicity becomes properly enjoyable. One minute it is a delivery van with tartan upholstery, the next it is sitting at the start line in Sport mode with the suspension at its stiffest, the engine at its perkiest and the DSG sharpening its elbows.

The noise in Sport is, let’s be honest, quite heavily synthesised. There is a definite sense of a small man in the speaker system making “raaaaarp” noises into a microphone. But it is still rorty enough to be amusing, and if you have spent the week using the GTI as a normal car, the sudden theatre feels unexpected and fun.

First corner and you are reminded why front diffs matter. The GTI has a front-axle differential lock, XDS+ electronic diff trickery and Volkswagen’s Vehicle Dynamics Manager doing whatever it is computers do when they are pretending to be chassis engineers. On a dry, warm day the Bridgestone Potenzas had loads of grip, and there was that lovely addictive feeling of the nose being dragged out of a corner.

It is quick, too. Not terrifying. But proper, useful, modern hot hatch quick. The 2.0-litre turbo makes 261bhp, which is enough to get it from 0-62mph in 5.9 seconds and on to 155mph. Heading out of Chicago and down to Hammerhead really shows the other side of the car’s personality. But after a few laps, it felt fast, tidy and composed. Too tidy. The Golf had reached that slightly frustrating place where it was doing everything well, but not quite being silly like a hot hatch should. So I thought I would turn the systems off. Ah.

Fifteen minutes, two phone calls and a lot of increasingly colourful language later, I found the ESC control. Or rather, I found the small digital cave where Volkswagen has hidden it. Not in the driving menu, where a human might look. Not as a physical button, where a German engineer from 1998 would have proudly placed it. No, it is buried under ‘brakes’. On a swipe screen of its own.

Then there is a two-stage process, involving another screen that you do not really notice the first time, and no obvious way to save it as a favourite. This is maddening. The Golf’s infotainment is better than the old Mk8 system, yes, but it still isn’t intuitive. There are too many menus, screens, submenus, swipes and dropdowns. You never quite find the thing you wanted. You just eventually arrive somewhere related and make peace with it.

Anyway, with the systems off, the Golf woke up. Not transformed, exactly, but loosened. The ESC stopped nibbling at wheels and the car became more chuckable, more physical, more like a proper hot hatch. You could feel the diff working harder, the front tyres scrabbling, the chassis moving around underneath you. It required more concentration and less obedience. That is the good bit. That is when the GTI stops being a very fast Golf and starts feeling like something with a pulse.

Into Hammerhead, standing on the brakes – which are excellent, by the way – you can play with the weight transfer, aim it into the direction change, then feed the throttle in and feel the nose dig itself out. The front end grips, hunts, wriggles and fires you away. It is not wildly playful, but it is satisfying. A little serious, perhaps, but satisfying.

Then, brakes smelling nicely of effort, it went back into van mode. Boxes in. Bags in. Bicycle in. Parcel shelf wedged somewhere it did not want to be. Back to real life. And real life is where the Golf has been quietly excellent.

Now it has loosened up a bit, I am seeing 41mpg on motorway runs, which is better than I expected and bang in the zone for a car that can also spend an afternoon being thrashed round a track. This remains the GTI’s ace card. It does not ask you to choose between fun and sense. It just leans slightly towards one or the other depending on the road, your mood and whether you have finally found the correct menu.

But there are quirks I’m finding. The horn, for instance. I expected a proper German horn. Something deep, confident and Teutonic. Instead, the GTI has a weak little toot. Crisp, high-pitched, loud and tinny. It is embarrassing to use.

Last month you may remember that a stone headbutted the windscreen and cracked it on the motorway, because apparently I am still the patron saint of broken automotive glass. While it was being sorted, I spent some time in a new Passat, which was a useful comparo to the Golf.

They’re horrendously familiar inside and with the Passat only available as an estate nowadays, it is therefore automatically excellent at being useful. It swallowed my life and more. Bike with wheels on? Easy. Bags? Easy. A small antiques shop? Probably. I briefly found myself craving a Golf Estate GTI, which does not exist, but absolutely should.

The Passat also had Volkswagen’s lovely ergonomic seats with massage, ventilation and memory. Dangerous things, those. Once you have had a car remember your seating position and blow cool air at your lower back in a heatwave, returning to manual adjustment feels like moving back to candles. The Golf’s tartan Jacara seats look brilliant and feel authentically GTI, but in British heatwave mode they could do with some extraction. Tartan is characterful. Tartan is heritage. Tartan is also quite warm when the sun is trying to sous-vide your thighs.

Still, getting back into the Golf made me appreciate its design. The Passat is enormously useful, but visually it looks a bit like someone grafted together three different cars in one of those games where you have to guess a celebrity face made from someone else’s hair, another person’s eyes and a third person’s chin. The Golf is much more cohesive. Sharper. Cleaner. More confident.

I especially like the new headlight design. The IQ.Light matrix LEDs look sophisticated, and I have programmed the little welcome dance to happen as I approach the car, because if you have paid for automotive jazz hands, you may as well enjoy them. The illuminated badge isn’t quite growing on me yet though. They’re a bit too garish. But that may change the more time I spend with it.