We wonder if all has been said about the VW Golf GTI; it’s such a motoring icon that when a new one comes out, it’s really all the scene talks about for a while.

This latest one continues the tradition of having slightly less power than its rivals (even from within the VW group), but makes up for that with a well-rounded character and by also being good in areas other hot hatches ignore in the quest for performance.

EVO took a Performance Pack-equipped model out for a spin and decreed that it’s still excellent – a much bigger leap over the previous incarnation than it in turn was over the fifth gen…

The simple conclusion is that it’s, as we’ve come to expect from VW, the result of carefully choreographed evolution. One thing that could be said about the GTI is that since the third-gen model, the manufacturer has really kept the formula simple and stuck to it.

By Andrei Nedelea

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