Overview

COME this September, the Volkswagen Golf GTI will have been with us on this earth for 50 years – making it easily the longest-running, most ubiquitous hot hatch in existence.

Australia falls some way short of that five-decade record, seeing that we didn’t see one until 1990, but none of that matters in 2025 because we now get what the Europeans have – and arguably a touch more if you count standard equipment.

The Golf in front of you is the new ‘8.5’ – a mid-cycle makeover intended to address several of the criticisms levelled at the 2021 Golf Mk8 – tested here in GTI form because that’s the badge that underpins what the Golf has become.

Sure, there are lesser-engined Golf 8.5s – the 1.4-litre Life, Style and R-Line – but given Australia’s love of all things sporty, here’s where the buck essentially starts.

Despite being the entry-level ‘hot’ Golf, the 8.5 GTI is far from being a base model. In addition to the standard 15-setting adaptive dampers, metallic paint, front fog lights, three-zone climate control, height-adjustable sports front buckets, ‘scale paper’ (tartan) cloth trim with microfleece highlights, and just about every safety system you can think of, the Mk8.5 introduces a few styling tweaks and a bunch of functionality enhancements.

On the outside, the refreshed 8.5 gets new front and rear bumpers, handsome new 19-inch ‘Queenstown’ alloys with 235/35R19 rubber, classic red ‘GTI’ lettering on the upper front doors, and smoother LED Plus front headlight designs with a horizontal light band bisecting a new illuminated VW grille logo.

On the inside, an all-new 12.9-inch touchscreen – angled towards the driver – now features fixed widgets across the top for easy access to drive modes, safety assist and such, as well as permanent HVAC touch controls across the bottom (with illuminated temperature controls, finally!) and a revival of physical steering-wheel buttons.

Volkswagen has humbly taken on board the litany of complaints from customers and the press regarding the confusing touchscreen operation and clumsy haptic steering-wheel controls of the previous Mk8, and the result is the massively more liveable 8.5.

At $58,990 before on-road costs, you’ll pay $2900 more for an MY25 GTI seven-speed DSG (there’s no manual available), which is partly accounted for by featuring 19-inch alloys as standard, as well as some of the lighting upgrades.

Chief options include a $1900 electric glass sunroof, a $2000 Sound and Vision package (360-degree surround-view camera, a head-up display, and a 480-watt, 12-channel harman/kardon 10-speaker sound system), and a $3900 Leather Package (which includes all the Sound and Vision equipment, plus Vienna Leather upholstery, electric front seats with three-position memory and seat ventilation as well as heating).

Select Kings Red premium metallic paint and you’ll be up for an additional $300.

Driving Impressions

Unlike the regular Golf line-up, which retains the slightly grainy ‘second world’ 1.4-litre turbo-petrol four tied to an eight-speed automatic, the MY25 GTI scores a new engine tune, resulting in the most powerful base GTI ever.

VW’s 2.0-litre turbo-petrol four now produces 195kW at 6500rpm (up from 180kW) and the same 370Nm of torque as before, resulting in a sub-six-second 0-100km/h claim for the first time in a GTI (5.9sec), supported by a supposedly fruitier exhaust note and ultra-rapid upshifts and downshifts from its seven-speed dual-clutch transmission.

Performance is incredibly strong at all rev points, delivering instant forward punch when the transmission kicks down under a floored throttle in Sport mode. Indeed, the new 195kW GTI is so muscular and dynamically capable that it could’ve once easily passed for a Clubsport version.

If Volkswagen Australia has its way, we’ll see the Mk8.5 GTI Clubsport in the near future, likely offered as a ‘50 Years’ special edition – at least to begin with.

The Clubsport lifts outputs to 221kW and 400Nm, sprints to 100km/h in 5.6sec, and can be optioned with a Race package in Europe for an increased 267km/h top speed. It can also be optioned with an Akrapovic sports exhaust, which would seemingly be mandatory for any hot-Golf afficionado.

The new GTI’s handling, steering and front-axle power-down are all also strong enough to have once been good enough for Clubsport status.

Featuring an ‘extended electronic front differential lock’ that acts like a mechanical front diff but can adjust its degree of engagement to suit the drive mode, even Sport mode sees this hot Golf haul itself towards a corner apex with a greater degree of smoothness than many of its hot-hatch rivals.

That said, it’s so damn effective at pointing the GTI into a corner and maintaining a tight line that you can simply mash the throttle and the Golf just pulls itself through. It’s a terrific party trick that never stops giving – enabling the GTI to attain delicious cornering poise.

About the only downside – if you could call it that – is the firm solidity of Sport mode’s steering weighting, which is great until your thumbs start to ache on really tight roads. At which point you simply put it into Individual mode and select Comfort steering, without jeopardising its crisp accuracy and turn-in keenness (thanks to just 1.9 turns lock-to-lock).

Given the inherent discipline of its suspension damping and its change-of-direction agility, you can leave the GTI in Comfort mode 90 per cent of the time. Even ‘softened off’ like this, its ‘progressive steering’ set-up offers decent weighting and its handling balance remains impressively unaffected.

There’s a little more body roll, a bit more understeer in tight corners and a touch more (subdued) lift-off oversteer when provoked in Comfort mode (with ESC Sport engaged), but also greater absorbency. And once you’ve found what works best for you, simply select Individual mode and mix and match.

Best of all, you can leave the full 15-setting damping range displayed on the huge new centre screen and adjust whenever you feel like it. And you can rely on the GTI’s ‘17-inch’ brakes discs (vented front, solid rear) to retain their composure regardless of the treatment, on public roads at least.

While the Mk8.5 GTI’s ride quality lacks the all-round absorbency that once defined the GTI in less aggressive times, it still displays a highly liveable comfort level on most Australian roads.

That is until one of its handsome new 19s becomes intimate with a big road hit, thumping its suspension into the bump stops, as a subtle reminder that Germany is a long way from Geraldton. And that’s with the adaptive dampers positioned at the comfort end of the spectrum.

Aside from all that, little else has changed with the Mk8.5 GTI. Its sports front seats are still brilliant – whether they’re the standard all-manual versions or the optional all-electric leather buckets – and its rear seat environment is as accommodating as ever.

If it were me, I’d probably opt for the Sound and Vision package to get the best stereo available, yet the MY25 GTI isn’t a car that relies on extras to offer something more. All its charms are already standard.

A bit more work finessing its adaptively damped ride comfort on scarred roads would bring the 2025 GTI closer to its best all-rounder forebears, as would a bit more rasp from its exhaust. But none of this can take anything away from just how focused the Mk8.5 GTI is.

As an involving, corner-carving Volkswagen hot hatch, the GTI has never been more on its game.

And if you still demand more, the forthcoming 245kW Mk8.5 Golf R and R Black Edition will be here in a matter of weeks, just to make sure that Wolfsburg has ever corner of the hot-hatch market covered.