Monday 27th January 2003

Déjà VW

Ian Eveleigh on the demise into obscurity of a once great icon - the Golf GTi

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[beast]

strangely enough, my wife and I's 1st car was a Mk1 GTi, then we had a Mk2 and none since.

However, she quite fancies another & I'd like an R32 now, and whilst she doesn't own a pair of £250 glasses, does enhance her hair colour.

Trouble is, I fancy her just as much as I did all those years ago as well as the car for different reasons and get quite excited in a testosterone led manner when she has some of her more glam friends with her (even in an MPV).

The thing with your scribble, entertaining though it is, is that it doesn't address the fact that we do age & move on in life and find different things "good" for different reasons.

The Golf is now 'the' ubiquitous hatch-back and we expect it to do everything well (if not excel) & that I believe is it's essence these days....and I could/would not be seen dead in somthing that looked like one of Renault's current castrations.

I'm not sure what compelled me to kill 5mins on this one after reading, but I think VW are probably spot on with the way they improve the car over time, even though I've dipped out of the range.

[PetrolTed]

That's the point though isn't it? The Golf has got middle aged... Why couldn't it stick to its original values?

[Podie]

it's all so painfully predictable...

The article, or the car? With all due respect, this is certainly not the first time I have read this type of article... Golf is getting middle aged... no surprises etc etc... perhaps another angle may have made more entertaining reading?

[Fatboy]

That's the point though isn't it? The Golf has got middle aged... Why couldn't it stick to its original values?

Isn't the point that they're following their old customers who first bought the GTis, providing what those customers now want, now they are middle aged, rather than trying to appeal to the young market with a GTi more like the original. A profitable strategy, but what happens when the current buyers VW are following with their customer clinics are old/extinct - will the Golf GTi go out in a blaze of wethers orinigals, moaning about the young hatches of today and how it was much better before all this electrickery it now so heavily reliesw on...

[v8thunder]

I will say one thing in the Golf's defence: although many would say that it looks dated, they don't feel the need to redesign it every year or two in the way that say, Nissan do with the Almera, which proves that like the car it's supposed to be, it's dull-but-worthy in an established and accepted way. As for the GTi, the nature of the model has changed because of the nature of the market: due to rising insurance premiums, the original GTi market (younger drivers who couldn't afford sports cars looking for something exciting to drive). The new buyers of GTi's want something more approaching a plush, fast family car. If you want an example of a pointless VW, look no closer than the Beetle. The original was styled secondary to it's packaging and was built with minimum outlay with quality in mind, yet the new one is ludicrously expensive and has lost the point of what it was supposed to be (the Golf now wears that crown). For the modern equivalent of a MKI GTi, the Seat Leon Cupra R has proved itself more exciting to drive than the Golf, even though they're based on the same platform.

[corozin]

I'm sure I read somewhere that VW's marketing strategy for their models has been to "age" them in line with the increasing age of thier owners.

Thus the Golf has mutated into a family sized car, the Polo has increased in size to be similar now to what the Golf was 20 years ago, and the Lupo now fits in at the bottom, replacing the Polo as the smallest car.

It's easy to knock the Golf as boring, but IMHO the styling off all the models (even the Mk3!) has aged remarkably well compared with the designs of other manufacturer's cars, which is just as well as they seem to last a helluva lot longer than most of them too.

To close, I'd also point out that it's now the largest selling single model of car ever, having passed the Beetle last summer, so clearly lots of other people havn't found them disappointing...

(Sorry to disagree with the article!)
John

[Ev_]

corozin said:it's now the largest selling single model of car ever, having passed the Beetle last summer, so clearly lots of other people havn't found them disappointing...

I thought the Corolla was way ahead of them both...

And popularity doesn't necessarily equal greatness either: have you seen the Top 40 recently?

[dejoux]

To close, I'd also point out that it's now the largest selling single model of car ever, having passed the Beetle last summer, so clearly lots of other people havn't found them disappointing...

I hate comparisons like this, the original beetle and the original mini stood well to tests like this but cars like the Golf and Corolla and Escort although having sold far more in total owe nothing to their original design, the escort and corolla even changed from RWD to FWD

[corozin]

dejoux said:I hate comparisons like this, the original beetle and the original mini stood well to tests like this but cars like the Golf and Corolla and Escort although having sold far more in total owe nothing to their original design, the escort and corolla even changed from RWD to FWD

Well very few cars which have been in production a long time have stayed true to thier original roots really I reckon... Caterham 7, Morgan, possibly the 911...

John

[markqelise]

AAAAAH - but how close has the Caterham stuck to its original design.

How many bits drop off a 7

[mondieu]

Surely the point of the golf range now is that its not supposed to be a sporty one anymore. Everything I read by the german head honcho bloke is that he's split the VW brands into two groups.

The "performance/sporting" brands are Audi, Seat Lamborghini and probably the Bugatti (if they ever make one!).

The more sensible and/or luxurious brands are VW, Skoda, Bentley.

Therefore are VW really building GTI's anymore? As someone else said, the Seat Leon has replaced the Golf GTi now. In my eyes current golf's are more like mini GT cars, in terms of having performance and more aimed at crusing than battering a B road.

Lets face it, if you're making a GTi diesel, its more aimed and effortless performance due to its torque than outright handling, if you dont agree, try taking a Mk4 over a twisty road.

[LuS1fer]

What a shame then that the Mk5 Golf looks like...well, an Almera.

[hornet]

You could always go to South Africa and pick up a "new" mk1.

[pentoman]

I've read that VW UK are keen not to do what they did before, and make a badge engineered GTi that's actually a European "1.8 highline" model.

Also, supposedly (not sure how much i believe this) the first GTi will be a 200bhp turbo.

It's promising that it's not out yet - if they were to badge engineer a basic model, they could've already brought it out at lunch.

It also has four wheel independant suspension now, so certainly has the ability to be good.


Let's hope!

Rusty