Having created the concept of the GTI back in the mid-70s, Volkswagen found itself being heavily criticised two decades later for applying the by now fabled set of initials to almost any Golf that could complete an overtaking manoeuvre without crossing a county boundary. No such nonsense can be found in the fifth-generation Golf range. With just short of 200bhp, and handling to match, the latest GTI fully deserves its name.At first acquaintance, in an urban environment, the ride quality seems severe, but already you suspect that this is an acceptable price to pay for what will happen later. Even at very low speeds the steering feels wonderfully sharp, and it stays that way as you take the GTI on to roads where it can do GTI-like things.In these circumstances it turns out that the firm ride in town was caused by the low-profile tyres, and as the cornering speeds increase and the behaviour of the chassis itself becomes more obvious than the stiffness of the sidewalls it's increasingly clear that the suspension is in fact quite soft, though very well damped. In general, the GTI is an excellent fast road car and a delight to drive.It falls down slightly whenever it's required to provide really good traction. A relatively light throttle in a tight corner or over a crest is enough to bring the anti-wheelspin software into play. There isn't quite enough front-end control to allow the GTI to deal with this kind of thing, and for the same reason the car wobbles over motorway undulations.This is familiar stuff. We're back to the old problem that German suspension designers don't seem to take into account the fact that roads can possibly be as bad as they are in the UK. On home ground I imagine these issues hardly figure at all.It may also be significant that the test car used the wonderful DSG transmission, a device which is actually a manual gearbox but is controlled like an automatic, without the use of a clutch pedal. To be slightly more precise about this, DSG is almost two gearboxes - while you're driving in one gear, the system guesses what gear you will want next and switches to it when required (the extra delay involved if it has guessed wrongly is almost unnoticeable unless you're especially watching out for it).Inevitably, DSG is heavier than the more conventional six-speed manual which is also available, and absolutely all of that weight is at the front of the car. The manual might just possibly be slightly nimbler.But there's a lot to be said for DSG. You hear, rather than feel, the changes from one gear to another, and they are miraculously quick - quick enough, in fact, to knock 0.3 seconds off the 0-62mph time. And I dare say that they may be more effective than that figure suggests, because the one thing DSG doesn't do is allow the car to move away from rest briskly. Whether you're trying to rocket towards the horizon, or to ease gently away from a parking space, the process of converting the GTI from a static object to a moving one is slightly laboured. It's perhaps the only thing that still has to be done to the DSG system to make it ideal.While both the suspension and - in this case - the transmission are close to perfect, the engine is nearer still. It's very quiet (to the point where it's nearly drowned out at times by an annoying booming sound in the passenger area) but it's also spectacularly effective. Maximum power occurs high up the rev range at 5100rpm, but maximum torque comes in way down at 1800rpm. The real-world effect is that it provides you with loads of performance any time you need it. In combination with DSG and the beautiful steering, this makes the Golf GTI outstandingly effective whenever there's any overtaking to be done.At £21,820, the test car was the most expensive in the GTI range; you can save money by opting for just three doors, and/or by forgetting DSG and just going for the normal manual transmission. You can also spend far more than the list price suggests. What you get for not quite £22,000 is a purposeful yet user-friendly hot hatch. Delve into the options bin and you can turn the GTI into something else entirely.Before the palpitations set in, I counted the following non-standard items on the test car. Here goes. Leather upholstery (including electrically controlled lumbar support for the driver's seat), £1645; navigation system, £1665; Xenon headlamps, £725; multifunction steering wheel (of which there are several, but I'm talking here about the one which has buttons to operate the DSG system), £515. That's already over £26,000, and there's more to come.You may want all that stuff, and perhaps you can afford it, and when it comes to reselling the car you might find you did well to specify so many extras. Personally I'm not sure I'd accept the low-speed ride or the clumsy getaway in a car costing £26,000-plus. I prefer to think of the GTI as sitting in a lower price bracket, and offering a driving experience which makes that sort of money seem a bargain. Engine 1984cc, 4 cylinders Power 197bhp Transmission 6-speed semi-automatic Fuel/CO2 35.3mpg / 194g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 6.9 seconds Top speed 145mph Price £21,820 Details correct at publication date
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