Volkswagen Golf GTI – Jack of All Trades
In a typical social gathering, conversations will almost inevitably lead to a discussion of your respective jobs. It has been my observation that each given job elicits a standard set of questions and/or statements in from someone in the conversation.
For example, an accountant is always ‘good at maths’, and a lawyer is always ‘good at talking’. Being a motoring journalist, typical questions that I always have to (and will continue to) face are recommendations for car purchases.
Tackling that question is not as easy as, say, recommending the best seafood restaurant in town. The consequences of buying the wrong car is quite a bit more severe than wasting a couple of hundred bucks on a bad meal. So, before I start naming any cars, I always throw back the question of what is it that the person asking wants with a car.
Cars that excel in a given area tend to be compromised in others. When picking the car of your choice, it is important to recognize where your priorities lie – driving dynamics, comfort, space, practicality, fuel economy or whatever other factors you can think of. Prioritizing performance, for example, usually calls for a sacrifice of fuel economy and comfort.
There is one car out there, however, that is widely regarded by many as the supreme all-rounder, the car for all occasions. It can be a sports car when you’re in the mood for some fun, yet it will also potter along at pedestrian speeds all day if you so desire. That car is the Volkswagen Golf GTI.
The saying ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ often rings loud and true when it comes to cars, and people, trying so hard to accomplish everything, they end up accomplishing nothing. With the Golf GTI, however, Volkswagen has a car that feels equally home at the track or a hotel lobby. It’s sportiness and classiness in one package, and that reflects in the way it drives too.
In the city, with the DCC Adaptive Chassis Control set to Comfort mode, the GTI quietly goes about its business with minimum fuss. You do get some weight at the controls, but it’s not so tiresome that it makes driving it a chore in jams. So docile it can be when driven gently that I had one passenger remarking, “I don’t seen GTI-ness of this car.”
Only a burbling exhaust note hints at the potency that lies under the hood, and some potency it has. Once you gun it at the sight of clear roads, the 1,984cc EA888 motor instantly applies 280Nm of twist to the front drive shafts, and the torture does not end till 5,200rpm. Keep stepping on it, and you get all 208 horses unleashed at 5,300rpm and lasting till 6,200rpm. Either at your prompting or on its own, the 6-speed DSG then seamlessly swaps you on to the next gear and off you go again.
Head to the trunk roads, flick the DCC to ‘Sport’, and it tackles bends with similar aplomb. Compared to the Golf 1.4 TSI we tested earlier, the GTI telegraphs more info back through its flat-bottomed steering. The GTI’s brakes are also easier to operate; the 1.4’s pedal was too over-servoed for my liking.
Two hundred horses and front wheel drive rarely make for sane pairings, but in the GTI, Volkswagen bundled in an electronic diff lock (XDS) to help mediate things between engine and wheel to ensure optimum traction at all times. The result is that the copious power and torque at the engine’s disposal never threaten to overwhelm the front wheels.
The DCC system mentioned earlier works rather well too, and even stands up to comparison with the four-mode Dynamic Driving Control system found in the BMW 535i. The GTI is not as good as the BMW in Sport mode, but its Comfort mode actually worked well in contrast to the poorly resolved setup of the 535i. Passengers accustomed to softly sprung cars may still find the GTI a little stiff in Comfort mode, but there are noticeable differences in ride and handling sharpness over the DCC’s three modes – Comfort, Sport and Normal.
Inside, the cabin strikes a good balance of simultaneously conveying a feel of sportiness and refinement – an almost impossible balance to achieve. Design-wise, it appears almost exactly like the Golf 1.4’s interior with a sportier steering, leather trim, and red stitches; and there’s nothing wrong with that. The Golf’s cabin is functional, well-built, if a little uneventful.
On the move, you don’t get a lot of unpleasant noises in the cabin. Road noise is even better suppressed than the Golf 1.4. The exhaust note of the muffler never stops to make its presence felt, but amazingly, even when you pelt the GTI at full throttle, there remains little need to raise the audio volume if you want to continue listening to your favourite song.
It is quite impressive how the GTI can successfully play the role of sports car and family hatch equally well. You can take this car out for track day in Sepang, and it will keep up with the best of them. You can take this car to the lobby of a 5-star hotel, and it will not look out of place alongside the fleet of Mercedes S-Classes and BMW 7 Series. Finally, you can take this car to your nearest hypermarket, and it will swallow a week of groceries without complaints.
Some say that the Bugatti Veyron is the ultimate symbol of the Volkswagen Group’s engineering prowess. However, it is cars like the Golf GTI in which they are at their best, building cars of immense quality, sophistication and ability. At its price of RM211,060 without insurance, the Volkswagen Golf GTI is really all the car you will ever need.
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