Today I did a swap around of cars with forum member James75 who has a GTD and a colleague of mine who has a face lifted Scirocco 150 TDI on hire for a few days.
An interesting experience, it's the first time I've driven a mk7 GTD having done many miles in a mk6 GTD as a friend of mine had one as a company car for a while.
The GTD felt slower revving but far more torquey than the GTI (obviously) and was doing around 45mpg on a slowish rural drive.
If I had to pick between the two I'd be hard pressed. Swings and roundabouts and on some days I'd prefer one and other days I'd prefer the other I reckon. James said "The GTI just feels like it wants to whizz up to its maximum speed all the time where as the GTD feels more relaxed but builds the speed quickly with its torque" or words to that effect.
As for the Scirocco, it's the first time I've seen a face lifted one in the flesh and I liked it, VW have done a good job but there's no disguising it's an ageing design, yet still turns a hell of a lot of (mostly female) heads. The 150 feels slow compared to the 184, I don't care what road testers say.
So, if I were to put all three together to make one car then the Scirocco has the looks, the GTI has the diff and brakes and the GTD has the grunt - so lets have a 184 TDI with PP diff and brakes, tuning box and a few of the nice electrical upgrades the MQB cars have...
