You can imagine our surprise when not even the Volkswagen media website is currently having any photo of the latest iteration of the Golf GTI, based on the Golf Mk VI. Well, what ever the reason for this... let's just call it leak – might be, the plot thickened after we realized the only official technical data about the new car on the UK “Vee Dub” website is a small excerpt from an AutoExpress article which appeared in December 2008.
Sounds very professional, doesn't it? Well, if we take into account that the pictures depict what appears to be a 99.99% identical version of the Golf GTI “Concept”, which was shown at the 2008 Paris Motor Show, then this “production car” should have just about the same specifications.
The two-liter turbocharged four-cylinder is set to produce 10 more horsepower and to use just a bit less fuel, bringing both aforementioned figures to 210 hp and over 31 mpg (estimated), respectively. The naught to 100 km/h (62 mph) time is 7.2 seconds for the manual transmission, while the top speed was increased to 240 km/h (149 mph). The optional adaptive chassis control (DCC) feature was transplanted from the Scirocco, which coincidentally is based on the same modified Golf V platform.
As for the design part, it seems that Walter Da Silva may have had a good reason for sending the original sketches back to the drawing board, since the new model seems to be more than OK from this point of view. There's a bit of the original Mk I in the red horizontal lines of the honeycomb radiator grill, while almost every remaining detail is an evolution of the Golf Mk V in GTI guise.
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