Exonian, on the car mag test...
People hate the digital golf but seem to like the clubby and love the R. Yet the thing they hate is the same as the gti.
Does another 60bhp or 4wd fix the digital problem? Of course it doesn't.
Does the mk8 R have the boring sure footed nature of the mk7 R? Certainly. Is that the same sure footed problem of the BMW m135i?
It's not a problem is it?
I think if anyone can say the two higher performance golf's are OK then the gti is OK too, just down on power... Down but not out really though in the real world.
I guess you have to put it all in chronological order.
New Golf unveiled to universal dislike of its looks. And face it, compared to the well proportioned mk7 it’s no beauty.
We’ve gradually acclimatised to the looks as each new variant arrives but the digital minimalist dash is still controversial.
The dashboards on all of the latest generation cars all have similar screens and they’re all a faff to set up and adjust on the move.
The 1 series feels to me more like what a mk8 might have been where the mk8 Golf feels more like it should be a mk8.5 or mk9 on the inside (or a next generation Polo looking at some of the trim!)
It’s initially seems a biggish transition going from 7.5 to 8 and yet it’s no different from moving from one generation of smart phone to the next. It looks more of a transition than it actually is, if we ignore all the car 2 stuff and focus on the basic settings. It is actually just a step on from the 7.5 but looks a step further due to the different dash architecture.
The steering wheel button pads really are sh!te though. Dreadful.
The standard GTI has almost as much torque as the Clubsport (as near as to make almost no difference) which is what a normal owner will feel in everyday driving.
Road testers will drive the arse off the car for a day or two and will hail the extra Clubsport power but mark it down as slower and not as focussed as a Type R etc.
Normal drivers won’t notice an awful lot of difference day to day between the two GTIs aside from the more eager feeling engine in the Clubby versus a more economical standard GTI. As you say, down on (top end) power but far from out at sane road speeds.
It’s almost as if before VW sign off any new GTI for production they make sure the last box to be ticked is “won’t win any group tests”
Since I was a teenager I can remember almost every few months the GTI would “lose its crown” to another car in the motoring mags. If a car could lose its crown that often then when did it actually wear it in the first place?! In fact the crown was never lost really. Others came and went but the Golf GTI is a constant.
VW want the car to keep the tradition of being the most “balanced” hot hatch to keep the image and crown.
The Clubsport carries on the fractionally edgier former Leon Cupra type mantle (now the SEAT offshoot has been dumbed down) but most road testers will just say “buy an R instead” I’d imagine.
The new R with added drift mode will obviously woo the influencers who have deserted runways at their disposal to skid around on, plus an extra 10 or 15 bhp to blow the immediate rivals away with a tenth of a second or two victory over the quarter mile.
But will the torque vectoring and drift capabilities mean the R has lost its slightly inert chassis?
The 135i is actually quite lively and in Sport mode can be a bit bonkers. Quite a step change from the torquey and smooth feel of the car when wafting about.
To me the 135i always felt front drive with a bit of rear assistance when needed, but when I had my R it felt more planted and neutral to the extent the power felt more equally split all the time.
The steering of the 135i seemed a lot sharper than previous Golfs I owned but the tyre pressures are quite high so maybe that’s contributory.
My seat of the pants impression of the 135i was that it *was* surefooted but felt FWD lively with it.
