Why do people buy hot hatchbacks with "automatic" gearboxes, even though the manuals are more fun? Because of stuff like this. Without that twin-clutch awesomeness, the 245 horsepower GTI Performance Pack wouldn't have won against the 310 HP GTI Clubsport S.
2016 was the GTI's 40th birthday, and they launched this hardcore model to celebrate. At the time, it held the Nurburgring record for the fastest car of its kind with a time of 7 minutes 47 seconds. That's on par with things like the 997 Porsche 911 GT3 RS, Lamborghini Murcielago.
It's a special edition with 310 horsepower, a stripped out interior and other performance enhancements. But VW did some improvements that made the regular GTI better last year. The Performance Pack model now comes with 245 and 370 Nm of torque (+15 HP, +20Nm).
The Clubsport S has been out of production for a while now. Volkswagen made 400 examples, 150 of which made it to Britain. About half of those should have manual gearboxes like the one in this video.
We wouldn't just put the results of this race down to the DSG gearbox because even after the initial launch, the regular 245 HP is still going strong. The tires of the older limited-edition model might not be good. Also, the maximum 310 HP output is only available for 10 seconds, after which it reverts to 290 HP.
It's interesting to see how the other two members of the GTI family perform. The baby Up! GTI is admittedly slow, but we kind of expected more from the 200 horsepower Polo after it blitzed a regular Golf GTI. Maybe a quick tune might make it faster.
But there's something bugging us here. Ever noticed how Mat is usually in the car that wins these drag races? You could say he's setting this up. But even if Volkswagen provided all these cars for marketing purposes, it's not like their sales will be impacted. The GTI Performance Pack is the only version you can buy right now after they deleted the base 230 HP model, and it's not like Up! GTI buyers will realize the error of their ways and switch to something twice as expensive.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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