New Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport 45 revealed

Volkswagen has launched a special Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport 45 that celebrates the 45th anniversary of the iconic hot hatchback.

Priced from €47,790 ($A75,000) in Germany, it's been confirmed the 2021 Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport 45 will be a series-production model and not limited in numbers, suggesting it could be sold in Australia.

However, it's been reported Volkswagen is likely to cull the GTI Clubsport 45 for the 2022 model year, suggesting it will only be on sale for nine months.

To commemorate four-and-a-half decades of the Volkswagen Golf GTI, the 45 gets new 19-inch alloy wheels, standard matrix LED headlights, a larger tailgate spoiler and a contrasting black roof.

The big wing is claimed to be a homage to the original Mk1 GTI's black plastic spoiler.

An Akrapovic sports exhaust and small '45' decals stuck on the lower half of the rear doors complete the exterior changes.

Inside, there's a pair of new sports seats embroidered with GTI logos, plus a sports steering wheel with 45 badging.

Under the bonnet there's no improvement over the normal Golf GTI Clubsport, which means it gets the uprated 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine that produces 221kW/400Nm – a sizeable bump over the 180kW/370Nm the regular Golf GTI produces.

Only available with a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic that drives the front wheels, the special Golf GTI Clubsport gets an electronically-controlled limited-slip differential that boosts traction and enables the hot Golf to hit 100km/h from rest in just 5.6 seconds.

Volkswagen engineers have also given the fast special-edition Golf GTI Clubsport 45 a new Race mode that removes the standard car's 250km/h speed limiter, raising its top speed.

First launched in 1976, the Volkswagen Golf GTI helped define the hot hatch genre, and with 2.3 million shifted it has gone on to become one of the world's best-selling performance cars.

The latest 45 anniversary Golf GTI is the sixth anniversary GTI to be offered, with Volkswagen introducing a special-edition to commemorate the original every five years since the Edition 20 was introduced back in 1996 on the Mk3 Golf.