After a date with an old flame, our correspondent finds that the refreshed Volkswagen Golf GTI is still the classiest act in town by far.
A GENTLE refresh, power lift and price drop were all the excuses I needed to book a date with an old flame: the Golf GTI. Well, a mate of mine’s old flame, to be truthful, because, back in the early 1990s, although I did fancy my fellow art teacher’s foxy VW GTi Mk2 16-valver, I actually went out with her (much) dirtier French sister, the Peugeot 1.9 GTi. We were the GTi art department.
The VW was more stolid, aristocratic. I drove it once on a long tour back from Tours and enjoyed the novel respite of its solidity and precision. The Pug GTi I was more smitten with was, by comparison, a Betty Blue without the tranquilisers. A tempestuous, plate-smasher of a car. French loons had shoehorned an oversized van engine into an undersized go-kart, shrink-wrapped it in a black leotard and let it loose on the road. Boy, did it like to drive!
This story is from the October 18 2017 edition of Country Life UK.
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This story is from the October 18 2017 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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