It's good to see Lee's take on it as someone who spend years dealing with actual customers coming through the door.
And for anyone buying I'd always say give Lee a shout as he's a the opposite of the salesman in the Golf Ball Steering Wheel thread!
As per Lee's post really, you can get really good deals on new cars nowadays as the manufacturers want to shift metal and they've seen the trend in how people buy things like mobile phones and other lifestyle products so make it easy (if not exactly cheap) to purchase high value items (cars) with minimal up front cost.
When you look at the fact you can get say 11% off an R (real life figure I've been given myself in the last week), or possibly a fair bit higher off a GTI with the £1250 discount added to the initial discount. Also VW do around 6.5% on finance for a new car against something like 10.9% interest I saw quoted on VW's used website recently it means that despite your newish car still having load of warranty left it HAS to be significantly cheaper than a new model for anyone to even consider test driving it, never mind actually buying it. Also factor in that VW supply dealers with their own pre registered low mileage cars they give to staff to run around in which mean that a sub 2 year old GTI has competition from all angles.
As for the fact of it being white and three doors - well people that buy hot hatches will order three door hatches quite happily, and just look at the smaller hot hatches such as Peugeot's 208 GTI or the Fiesta ST which have stayed true to the original ethos of lightest weight, stiffest body shell and powerful engine; but when you get up to Golf size then people tend to be a bit more discerning and 5 doors are far more common.
If you look on the mk5 GTI forums you'll see a much younger demography of buyer who will seek out the 3 door cars more as they appear more 'sporty' and fit their 'image' more, but these are older cars and I think younger people are now looking at the ease of getting newish cars on PCP's or loans now too. I'm not a highly paid statistician, but I can see buying habits changing a hell of a lot since I was younger when only kids with rich parents had newish cars. Youngsters will see the new numberplate and the latest gadgets and, I think, just as importantly they may have been stung by big repair bills on their older cars too as modern cars are full of things that are incredibly expensive to fix and ever more complex.
So the trick for the manufacturers now isn't the actual up front ££££ but more the affordability of their products to keep them turning over. I highly doubt VW make a heap on used car sales per se but they will always been keen to keep the newer models within the dealership umbrella as it's the finance side where the money is made (plus all the crappy add ons).
So, white 3 door GTI's are great for youngsters and old farts like me trying to recapture their youth after years of buying 5 door hatches because we 'had to' but don't appeal to as many people as safe and steady silver/grey 5 door cars.
Sorry white 3 door haters, but I get loads of random compliments on my white 3 door GTI from people I've never met, but invariably these people have much more staid transport of their own. They might like my shiny white GTI, and say they'd love to own one - but alas when it comes to shelling out their own money, they don't buy one...
