RAIN SUPREME

VOLKSWAGEN ISN’T CONTENT WITH RESTING ON ITS LAURELS WITH THE MK8 GOLF GTI. BUT HAS IT MESSED WITH A PERENNIALLY WINNING FORMULA?

- SCOTT NEWMAN

YOU ENTER THE pub, sit down at the table and grab a menu, making a show of perusing the available options. It’s all a charade; you know exactly what you’re going to order, you’ve known for hours. You’re going to choose the chicken parmigiana – chances are everyone is.

The reason the chicken parmi (or parma) is the default pub choice is the same reason the Volkswagen Golf GTI is the default hot hatch choice – you know what you’re going to get. In both cases the recipe hasn’t changed much in decades and nor has it had to because if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

This only makes it all the more remarkable that for the eighth generation of its iconic fast five-door Volkswagen is fiddling with the recipe, if only slightly. If we return to the chicken parmigiana metaphor, the VW has stuffed a few spicy jalapeños between the ham and the cheese.

No standard Golf GTI has ever been this, well, serious. Its mechanical specification effectively mirrors that of the previous generation Golf GTI Performance, including the fourth evolution of the long-serving EA888 engine, which produces 180kW from 5000-6200rpm and 370Nm from 1600-4300rpm.

For the first time a proper limited-slip front differential is standard on a ‘normal’ GTI, the multi-plate unit is electronically rather than mechanically controlled in order to minimise steering corruption. A six-speed manual is available overseas, but locally only the new seven-speed ‘shift by wire’ dual-clutch gearbox will be offered, meaning there’s no longer any physical connection between the gear lever and the ’box itself.