As with the outside, the most recent Golf leans closely into its scorching hatch historical past whenever you climb aboard. Regardless of the de rigueur addition of a number of TFT screens, you already know immediately that you simply’re sitting inside a GTI.
The tartan-checked seat trim is current and proper, as is the crimson stitching for the chunky three-spoke steering wheel. Sometimes for a Golf, there’s a variety of seat and wheel changes, permitting you to completely tailor your driving place.
The pedals are nicely spaced and neatly organized. Visibility ahead is nice, however these trademark C-pillars create an ungainly blindspot and the rear display screen is shallow and on moist days will get shortly lined in moisture and highway grime.
When the eighth-generation Golf was first launched, Volkswagen made a lot of it being an ‘all-digital’ Golf, with a 10in digital instrument cluster, a central infotainment touchscreen and most of the bodily buttons pared again or changed with haptic panels. That features the buttons on the steering wheel stalks.
All of it appeared very slick, however there have been flaws. The haptic buttons might be infuriating, whereas the touch-sensitive ‘slider’ under the display screen for the audio quantity and heating controls was frustratingly inconsistent and, worse, didn’t gentle up so that you couldn’t see it at night time.
The adjustments for the Mk8.5 GTI enabled by the brand new MQB Evo platform go some solution to tackle that, as they’ve on the opposite Volkswagen Golf fashions we’ve tried. The system is constructed round a brand new and bigger 12.9in infotainment display screen, which makes use of its additional dimension to function fastened controls for key features alongside the highest and backside edges.
There’s nonetheless a ‘slider’ under the display screen, however it’s a bit extra intuitive to make use of and is now truly illuminated at night time. In the meantime, there are precise buttons on the steering wheel stalks, which is a welcome transfer.
That mentioned, this tester discovered that the angle of them made them a bit tough to make use of. Nonetheless, we’d fairly have bodily buttons than not, so let’s not grumble an excessive amount of.
The touchscreen focus of the unique eighth-generation mannequin did elevate considerations a couple of slight stoop in perceived high quality, with the introduction of some lower-rent plastics.
These have been considerably addressed with this replace and our check automobile confirmed a larger materials richness. (VW has even painted the underside of the bonnet.) However we might nonetheless discover a number of panels that weren’t fairly as sturdy as you’d hope.
On the plus aspect, refinement is comparatively sturdy, with wind noise not often an issue and roar from the tyres solely noticeable on the coarsest surfaces. As with the seventh-gen automobile, the engine noise is augmented, which means a sportier, extra intrusive and synthetic aural backdrop in Dynamic mode.
It’s finest left in Consolation, the place the small lower in throttle responsiveness is greater than a good trade-off for the discount in under-bonnet quantity – though the two.0-litre unit nonetheless retains a rorty edge.
As with all Golfs, the GTI is about as spacious as you’d want it to be, packing a good quantity of house into what’s a comparatively compact bundle.
Giant adults will discover sufficient head and leg room within the again, even when their view ahead is compromised by the high-backed sports activities seats, whereas there are a great deal of thoughtfully organized oddment house, together with a number of cupholders, smartphone trays and deep door bins.
There’s a good boot too – a good 374 litres of carrying capability (method behind a Skoda Octavia’s, however across the class common) with the rear seats in place. A false flooring might be lowered for taller gadgets or raised to create an nearly completely flat flooring when the rear seatbacks are folded down (the rear squabs stay in place). Efficiency doesn’t come on the expense of practicality.
