Agree on the starting price being north of £40k, bearing in mind the list price of the current GTI is now £39,575 before options. However, maybe VW will adopt subscription-based services as a means of keeping the base list price below £40k, with owners then being able to retro-purchase certain options via OTA activation?
Unless it’s a dummy sensor in the Autocar pictures, moving the front radar sensor to the lower grille (mk7 style) rather than having it behind the VW badge in the upper grille seems a strange move…….