Volkswagen Golf GTI 2021 Review – International

Compared to a standard Golf, the Volkswagen Golf GTI has long made a name for itself by adding more performance, better handling and some styling fiddles while retaining the standard hatchback’s versatility.

It’s really that simple and always has been. The hiccup with the strategy is that it relies on the donor Golf being good enough in the first place.

This time around, in its eighth generation, the 2021 Volkswagen Golf GTI brings the same performance, much better handling, the same versatility (including a 380-litre luggage area) and welcome styling and upmarket touches, inside and out.

There are more GTI badges at the front, at the rear, on the sills, on the pair of round exhaust exhausts and inside, including a ‘flitzer’ on the front quarter panels.

The headlights have a red LED strip across the top and there are 10 LED fog lights squeezed into the hexagon graphic of the front air intakes.

It’s inside where the latest Volkswagen Golf GTI leaps forward. It looks like a small upgrade, but familiarity shows just how far forward it has come.

The 10.25-inch digital instrument cluster now has more view and screen options and is easier to toggle through, while the optional 10.25-inch infotainment touch-screen (up from the stock 8.25-inch version) combines connected functions with daily use functions.

And if you don’t like touch-screens, there is voice control for most of the functions.

There are plenty of piano-black plastics to offset some of the harder, jarring plastic pieces and the stubby DSG gear lever emerges from the centre console.

It’s an upmarket-feeling cabin, even within the context of the Golf Mk8’s steps forward, with sports seats and integrated head restraints as standard, a lovely-feeling leather-clad steering wheel and stainless steel pedals.

The upgrades to the Volkswagen Golf GTI’s in-cabin technology mostly mirror those in the standard Mk8 Golf.

It’s different underneath, where Volkswagen worked to eradicate the ‘double bite’ turn-in behaviour of the Mk7’s steering.

The core is the same MacPherson strut front and multi-link rear suspension systems bolted to the MQB Evo chassis architecture, with a ride height dropped 15mm over the standard car.

They’ve put in an all-new aluminium front subframe, which saves 3kg (in a 1460kg car) and adds enormously to the front-end’s stiffness.

The outgoing Golf GTI’s engine bushes had 17,000Nm/degree of stiffness, but never saw anything like that because the steel subframe deformed well before then anyway. Not anymore.

The other big chassis step is the Vehicle Dynamics Manager (VDM), which centralises all of the handling functions from the skid control to the (optional, but recommended) adaptive dampers.

It makes 200 damper adjustments per second.

The front springs are five per cent stiffer and the rears 15 per cent stiffer, indicating which end of the car they’re trying to rotate here.

There are also massive changes to the Driving Dynamics Manager. This used to be a simple three-step system with Eco, Comfort and Sport settings. VW keeps them for simplicity’s sake, but it also adds a 15-step sliding scale for the Individual mode that now gives custom control of steps from Eco to Comfort to Sport and above.

The new Volkswagen Golf GTI has made enormous strides in engine response and, in particular, the way its chassis helps it around corners and delivers confidence to its drivers.

The fourth evolution of the EA888 2.0-litre engine sees the arrival of a new particulate filter and catalytic converter and a fuel-injection system that bumps up the injection pressure from 200 to 350 bar.

It gives 180kW of power (the same as the Mk7 GTI Performance) over 5000-6500 rpm and 370Nm of torque over 1600-4300rpm.

And Australia won’t get it, allegedly due to the high-sulphur petrol that doesn’t seem to hurt Peugeot.

Instead, we keep the motor from the Mk7.5 Golf GTI, which has the same power and torque outputs.

This is all driven through the front wheels via a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission (or a six-speed manual) and an electronic differential lock.

That’s enough to move the GTI in a straight line to 100km/h in 6.3 seconds and on to a limited top speed of 250km/h.

None of that technology would matter if the Volkswagen Golf GTI didn’t handle properly, or ride properly, or carry enough luggage, but it does all three.

It now pulls more than 1.1g of cornering acceleration and still rides like a champion, despite the test car’s bigger wheels and optional 235/25 R19 tyres.

Volkswagen’s newest GTI doesn’t have the same power as a Hyundai i30 N or a Renault Megane RS, but that doesn’t seem to matter when it’s so strong in the mid-range and can corner with this much confidence.

It’s an enthusiastic engine with superb flexibility, either with the six-speed manual or the seven-speed DSG transmission attached to it, and it’s enthusiastic in its chase for revs.

It doesn’t have the urgency of the Hyundai or the mouth-frothing lunacy of the Megane RS, but it delivers something very different – the strong driveability people need every day.

The DSG is also swifter and cleaner in its action and even the manual shift feel (long a Volkswagen bugbear) is nicely mechanical.

The only thing you really miss with it is engine noise. It’s too quiet, even with an artificial sound actuator, though that won’t be a problem in Australia.

Better than that, the chassis upgrades utilise the engine performance. There’s no torque steer, no wasted effort.

It corrects its own understeer, if you can ever find it, and the car works brilliantly in and out of corners, with no trace of any system fighting anything else. Every system feels like it’s on the same page.

The fast-acting VDM is responsible for this, and the added subframe stiffness, and the car makes its driver confident every time it finds a corner. Its behaviour from the turn-in point to the apex is astonishing, even in this class.

Even the brakes (340mm front discs and 310mm at the rear) have moved on from their bump-nibble ABS and now they’re powerful, easy to modulate and it takes an enormous provocation to activate the anti-skid braking system.

The seats are superb, full of side support for cornering and back support for cruising, and the steering wheel, as ever, feels perfect in your hands.

Some of the touch-screen functions are perhaps too fiddly, taking your eyes off the road for too long, but only a longer familiarisation will determine if this is a problem or not.

The Volkswagen Golf GTI’s straight-line performance can be considered a couple of ways. Firstly, it’s not as fast as some of its rivals. Secondly, it’s holding the warm-hatch line while others are trying to pull it into the more extreme territory where the Volkswagen Golf R lives.

The GTI was never meant to be the fastest, just faster, and so it remains. It is brilliantly usable day in and day out. It doesn’t look like a boy racer and it doesn’t ride like one, either.

Its ability to live the dull life interestingly doesn’t hurt it when the roads bend, though, and the GTI instils instant confidence that it will be a lot of fun in winding roads.

And it is. It is a ridiculous step up in cornering ability from the Mk7, to be honest, and it asks almost nothing in return.

Its behavioural envelope is wider than any of its rivals and it feels very grown up when you need it to be and very playful when you want it to be.

Even its steering is nicely measured and tactile, which hasn’t always been a Volkswagen highlight.

Apart from delivering Australia the latest engine technology, there isn’t much more you could ask from the new Volkswagen Golf GTI.

It ticks all the boxes, but not in a going-through-the-motions way. It ticks all the boxes because it feels like the car guys are in control of it again and they just wanted it to be better, in every circumstance.

And it is.

How much does the 2021 Volkswagen Golf GTI cost?
Price: $45,000 (estimated)
Available: Early 2021
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol
Output: 180kW/370Nm
Transmission: Seven-speed dual-clutch automatic
Fuel: TBC
CO2: TBC
Safety rating: TBC