Volkswagen Golf R, GTI & GTD (2019) Track Comparison Video
A racetrack. Three new Volkswagen Golf 7.5s. One racing driver. And, one particularly excited presenter with a stopwatch. Volkswagen recently released a bevy of new 7.5-generation Golfs in South Africa. In this video, we send our race-ace Ashley Oldfield out onto the track in a bid to set the fastest time in each car. With the Golf R's exceptional power and all-wheel-drive, it will certainly set the pace, but how close can the GTI get to the R? And, how well will the GTD compare with the petrol-powered GTI? All of these questions will be answered, and all without the use of any dragons. Want to buy a Volkswagen Golf? Ciro started his first car website at the age of 19 and promptly dented his first ever test car. Surprisingly he鈥檚 still at this motoring journalism thing 7 years later. Ciro is a contributor to Cars.co.za鈥檚 content portal. Catch him present OverdriveTV on SABC3鈥檚 Expresso Show every Friday morning.
The car has cruise control, which is useful. The climate control features worked. The sunroof opened. The legroom up front was more than good enough for two humans. On the Up GTI, though, the system somehow made all the sense in the world. And the difference was the clutch. Depress the clutch, and the car starts up, and you鈥檙e good to go, and it was that small difference that made all of difference. The delay felt less significant since you were doing something while the engine once again fired up. Each stop and start felt like a new lease on life, and pressing the clutch was genuinely exciting, as if the pedal had somehow unlocked an entirely new use after all these years. Also great, of course: the plaid. Man, more cars need plaid. There were no major bad things. I mean to say there was one major bad thing, and that was that the car I was testing, like many cars these days, did not come with a spare tire.
That鈥檚 a fact I normally wouldn鈥檛 have given any thought to until one day, when I was driving in southern France, disaster ensued. I had gotten a flat. And so I opened the fifth door, uncovered the carpet and found the well for the spare tire, though the tire itself wasn鈥檛 there. What was there instead was a mousse kit, which ended up being completely useless, though I was sure I鈥檇 followed the instructions closely. All of which is to say, do yourself a favor and get yourself a jack and a spare. When I got home to New York, and began telling colleagues what happened, their mousse reaction was universal: 鈥淥h, yeah, that shit never works.鈥?Ah. Hmm. I see now. A Volkswagen spokesman told me that all of their cars come with either a spare or the mousse. My only other complaints about the car are less complaints than they are quibbles, and they might even be more cavils than quibbles. I appreciated the (possible) utility of this feature when it comes to saving fuel, but in practice it seemed to want to rush you up the gear ladder more swiftly than is recommended, or necessary.
For a week in Europe driving in various places, my lady and I found that it had plenty of space for two with luggage, though any more than that might have been pushing it. The Up GTI is excellent for city driving, has enough cargo space for regular living, and has a good amount of power. And not too much power, which would make it feel less fun and more tense, since any wrong move with the gas pedal might send you lurching into the car in front of you, or, worse, something living. The Up GTI is sensible with its power. It鈥檚 looking out for you. As we鈥檝e noted, it鈥檚 not the quickest car on paper, but I promise you that that doesn鈥檛 really matter. The Up GTI bangs. It鈥檚 quick but not too quick. It鈥檚 fun without being too much fun. The handling was comfortable on turns, and the braking was reliable; you never felt in less than full control of the car. Sometimes driving it reminded me of karting in the woods when I was a kid.
