You might laugh at the plucky Up! GTI from the comfort of your SUV. But it's small cars like this that make people fall in love with driving - Lupo GTI, 106 GTi, C2 VTS and especially the 5 Turbo.
Even though Volkswagen has been making hot hatchbacks for over 40 years, it doesn't feel like the Up! GTI is built on heritage. Instead, this is a fresh start, an idea that very few car companies are willing to try.
The regular Up! routinely wins comparative reviews, and it got a turbo engine last year. But the GTI version packs a little more power. To be precise, a similar 1.0-liter TSI engine now delivers 115 hp and 230 Newton-meters (170 pound-feet). That makes it 5 hp stronger than the first GTI and a hell of a lot torquier. However, we need to keep in mind that the MkI Golf weighed only 810 kilograms, where this tips the scales at 997 kg (2,198 pounds).
So how fast is it? In short, not very. The 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) sprint is dealt with in 8.8 seconds, and its top speed is 122 mph (197 kph). Of course, we know plenty of SUVs with a lot more power that are slower, but this Volkswagen is all about enjoyment, not winning drag races.
Besides the upgraded engine, engineers have also worked on lowering the suspension and giving it a little more stopping power. There's also a body kit that includes the most subtle red stripe ever fitted to a hot hatch, gloss black trim on the bumper, 17-inch alloys and a trunk spoiler. There's a single exhaust pipe sticking out the back.
We'd give them a C for effort because those wheels are old and the front bumper air intake is mostly fake. But the interior somehow makes up for things with tartan seats and what look like the steering wheel and gear shifter knob of the Polo GTI, or smaller versions of those. Did we mention there's no automatic option? That's good.
The Up! GTI will be shown during the GTI Meet at Worthersee. The bad news is they're calling it a concept, so they could take away from what little character this car has to make it cheaper. Production starts in 2018, and we're told the Up! has at least three more years of life in it.
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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