The Long Goodbye: VW Golf GTD
You can't buy a Golf GTD at the moment. Or rather you can't order one. The model is a victim of the more stringent WLTP standards, and, to a lesser extent, the fallout from Dieselgate. Volkswagen will wait for the Mk8 to reintroduce a Golf with a more powerful oil-burner - a not inconvenient delay when you consider the amount of dust there is left to settle. The model's abrupt relocation to the back-burner is symptomatic of the wider backlash against diesel. Not so very long ago it could claim to be one of the most popular variants of one of the most popular hatchbacks in the country. Its meteoric rise to favoured status - much like its recent downfall - mirrored the dramatic escalation of the diesel-powered car market in Europe. But it was not a new idea. A Mk2 followed, and a Mk3, but the UK derv market a the time was deemed too shallow to bother importing the idea of a go-faster badge. It deepened in subsequent years, although the Mk4 and 5 still loitered under the 'GT' designation in diesel format.
The rebirth finally came in 2009 with the Mk6 and a distinct 170hp 2.0-litre unit that furnished the GTD with the same 258lb ft of torque that Golf R owners were privy to. Unsurprisingly, this proved manna from heaven for a generation of business users enthralled with the idea of getting maximum forward bang for the lowest CO2 buck. Naturally its success was part founded on the notion of edgier performance, though the idea didn't necessarily earn it much respect among diehard hot hatch fans. When all was said and done, the diesel engine remained - a lesser, dirtier and drabber thing than any one of half a dozen petrol-powered units available elsewhere. The GTD could move you along fast enough, sure - but move you? No. It is intended to stir common sense, not the soul. Consequently, the 2.0-litre motor beneath - a derivative of the stock EA189 unit slap bang at the centre of the Dieselgate scandal - has always been halfway between hero and villain.
Back in the 'not so long ago', a no lesser figure than Mike Cross, Jaguar's Chief Engineer, told PH that he'd driven a current Golf GTD for reasons not connected to work and thought it exceptionally good. And, if you play to its strengths, it's easy enough to see what he was talking about. Like, for example, if you need to drive from Reigate in Surrey to Innsbruck in Austria. In one sitting. And then come back again. Being able to do 750km to a tank is a useful commodity against such a large backdrop; Innsbruck being (roughly speaking) about 1,100km from Calais. Which means you fill up once. The Golf, through France and Belgium at a respectful 130km/h, nudges 52mpg. And even with Germany traversed at German speeds, the trip computer claims 47.1mpg for the outward journey. With French tolls suffered all the way from Strasbourg, 49.8mpg. The cost?
A large McDonalds bill less than 鈧?00 in fuel. About the same as EasyJet quoted for two return tickets. Then there is that engine. More often than not, it feels neither fast or slow. The GTD is endowed instead with an oily sort of expediency, one that never quite pins the ears back or quickens the pulse, but leaves you no time to dwell on either drawback because it's thrusting you so relentlessly onward. And because it's all hooked up to the running gear of the world's most accommodating hot hatch, you drive virtually everywhere in a perpetual state of brisk - which, in the real world, more often than not, is just dandy. Perhaps that's no great loss. It always was not quite one thing or the other. But the concept was no more half baked than the petrol-electric hybrids that will likely replace it down the road. Moreover, it - and several other cars like it - did at least pull off one legitimate GTI-style trick: they successfully repackaged and democratised some of the performance from the diesel-drinking class above.
