First of all, we're not allowed to say that we're sorry the Golf GTD isn't available in the U.S. because Volkswagen ruined the environment... unlike all those "rolling coal" Cummins trucks. Second of all, even the GTI is slower off the line than a Chevy Bolt, so these might not be called "hot hatches" for very long.
Still, these two flavors of enthusiast car are desirable right now. For 2017, the Golf GTI comes standard with a 230 horsepower engine instead of the 220 HP one we had last year. Torque stays the same at 350 Nm, but there is a Performance Pack with 245 HP and 370 Nm.
We don't know where Cars South Africa are getting their specs from, because the GTD doesn't have 130 kW (177 HP metric) and the GTI packs a little more than the 159 kW (216 HP) they mention. Likewise, they do not have the same torque output - the diesel has slightly more, of course. We think there's some market-specific 2.0 TDI engine being used here because the specs match the old engine from the CC and Scirocco. That could also explain why the GTD is about 10% cheaper there.
Right, enough of these boring numbers; let's watch the race. The Golf GTI launches really badly, spinning its wheels off the line before the traction control intervenes. This helps the GTD pull ahead by a whisker.
The resident race car driver isn't too happy with the diesel model either. He says it's great in first gear but runs out of puff after that. Of course, this is a valiant effort, and nobody expected it to win.
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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