« Reply #216 on: 13 February 2021, 17:26 »
Apparently the photos aren’t of the car they tested. Something is a bit odd there though. Does feel a bit clipped together.
Hmmm, I smell a rat!
A shame really as pistonheads reviews are normally good, or the odd one or two I’ve previously read (from links on here) have been at least.
Depends on what your priorities are, most people don't buy a golf gti because it's the fastest or best handling...
If I don't run the clubby on 98, am I seeing much difference?
The higher state of tune (as opposed to the 245 engine) works better on higher RON stuff but it’ll run happily enough on 95, especially just pootling around in cooler weather. Driving hard in warm weather might lead to retardation to stop detonation possibly. I get your point though, although enthusiast owners (us lot) will generally insist on using Momentum and V-Power, the average cheap lease company car driver won’t be arsed and won’t notice a difference.
why do people buy a GTI if not for power and handling? Is the mk8 becoming the new mk4 
The modern GTI appeals to a really broad spectrum of people where the mk4 GTI mostly appealed to image conscious women until the tuners started releasing decent power out of the 1.8t engine.
There was a big gulf opened up between the GTI and R in the mk7 days so VW addressed that. Unfortunately their solution made those 290 bhp versions more expensive than an R to buy (new) when discounts and leases were taken into consideration.
VW have now come up with a staggered model line up with a clear price gap between models.
The basic mk8 GTI is praised for its handling in every road test I’ve seen and as usual its performance belies its on paper power deficit. It’s no mk4 GTI.
Most likely every road test of an R will decry the Clubsport as ‘pointless’ next to it which will miss the point completely. A Clubsport is a very fast GTI out of the box where an R is just a fast competent Golf unless you throw £5k of extras at it to make it what it wants/needs to be.
Logged
‘23 8R, ‘20 8CS, ‘19 135iX, ‘19 TCR, ‘17 Ed40, ‘17 GTD, ‘15 7R, ‘13 GTI PP, ‘11 GTI, ‘09 GTI, ‘98 Ibiza Cupra, ‘05 GTI, ‘06 Polo GTI, ‘04 GT TDI, ‘05 Fabia vRS, ‘02 GTI T, ‘03 Ibiza TDI 130, ‘01 Leon 180, ‘89 mk2 16v, ‘99 Ibiza TDI, ‘96 VR6, ‘98 Ibiza TDI, ‘92 VR6, ‘88 mk2 8v, ‘92 Polo G40, ‘91 mk2 8v, ‘89 mk2 8v, 205 GTI 1.9, ‘83 mk1 GTI, ‘80 Scirocco GTI, plus some others I’ve forgotten
