OVERVIEW - What is it?
The quintessential hot hatch. Rarely the most exciting, most engaging or best-handling car in its class, but usually the most sophisticated and desirable, the Golf GTI has been around in some form or another since the mid-Seventies, when it was dreamt up by a team of just six blokes working after-hours. It was an instant hit - VW planned to build 5,000 of them, but ended up selling six times that in the space of just one year.

Back when it was new you had a choice of GTIs - there was the standard car, then there was the ‘Performance Pack’, which added power and a trick diff’. Today the Performance Pack is the base car, the car reviewed here, but you can upgrade to the marginally more hardcore TCR (of which you can read a full review right here) if you have the means.The manual gearbox died when WLTP emissions rules kicked in, so now all GTIs are DSG only. The three-door is dead too, but that’s ok, as the five-door is the one you wanted anyway.

DRIVING - What is it like on the road?
The Mk7 GTI uses the same 2.0-litre petrol engine as literally every other even moderately brisk VW. You can find it in the Skoda Octavia vRS, the Leon and Ateca Cupra, Audi S3 and SQ2 and of course the Golf and T-Roc R among others. In the GTI Performance it produces 242bhp (in the Cupra it makes as much as 345bhp). 

Our test car had the adaptive dampers, meaning the ride is supple even on those chintzy 19-inch alloy wheels. 

The GTI is fun to drive, make no mistake, arguably more so than the heavier all-wheel drive Golf R, but it’s hardly the most engaging car in its class. It grips and goes and feels light on its feet, but the Ford, Hyundai and Megane are livelier and more engaging at road speeds. What they lack, though, is the Golf’s quality and day-to-day comfort, its feeling of sophistication and classiness. They simply aren’t as desirable. 

If you want to read about the slightly more hardcore, more powerful Golf GTI TCR, click on these words.

ON THE INSIDE - Layout, finish and space
Sitting in what is essentially the ‘old’ Golf - for production of the new Mk8 has already begun - really highlights ergonomic issues presented by the touchscreens and touch-sensitive surfaces/buttons the car industry is moving towards.

See, the Mk7’s interior is tremendous - it might not look as modern as the Mk8’s but it’s very straightforward to use on the move. For the Mk8 VW replaced most of the Mk7’s physical switchgear with touch-buttons. From the sunroof to the headlights - everything is now either controlled through a touch-sensitive button, or through the infotainment system. Doing it this way might have given the Mk8 Golf a better-looking interior, but it sure as hell hasn’t given it an easier-to-use interior. Ergonomically-speaking, if not technologically or aesthetically, the Mk7 Golf’s interior is better.

Quality is beyond reproach, of course, and there are enough GTI-specific bits to make it feel special in here. The steering wheel, for example, is one of the best fitted to any ‘normal’ car, while the seats are trimmed in traditional tartan upholstery. As the manual gearbox is dead, there is no golf-ball gear lever, which is a shame. 

For the 2017 facelift VW upgraded the Golf’s infotainment system - the standard eight-inch system is just fine, no need to upgrade, as it keeps a physical volume knob and still gets Apple CarPlay/Android Auto. The digital instrument cluster isn’t quite as good as Audi’s Virtual Cockpit, but all the info you need is clearly displayed and the screen itself has good graphics.   

Space is good - the boot is a decent size, and two adults can sit comfortably in the rear-seats.

OWNING - Running costs and reliability
It won’t be long before VW takes the Mk7 Golf GTI off sale, so if you want one you’d better hurry up. Prices start at £33,180 for the GTI Performance Pack, making it pretty expensive for what it is - the Ford Focus ST, Renault Megane RS and Hyundai i30N all start at under £30,000. The TCR costs £37,830, making it more expensive than the all-wheel drive, 300bhp-odd Golf R.

At least you don’t need to spend much on options - the GTI Performance gets pretty much everything you might want as standard, from adaptive cruise control, to electric/heated everything via a CarPlay-compatible infotainment system. We might consider adding the Dynamic Chassis Control (DCC) for £875.