VW Golf GTI: 40 Years of Domain!
VW GOLF GTI
40 YEARS OF DOMAIN !
Words: Alessandro Marrone
Photography: Giorgia Rossi
While the town is still asleep, the cold air at 7.00 AM is crashing our face, struggling us in search of a little shelter from that annoying wind. The good weather is now far behind and the colorful t-shirts are gone in favor of heavy jackets, but nothing can stop what promises to be a very special day, accompanied by Patrizia and her husband, with their beautiful Golf GTI MK1 – the first GTI, the one that 40 years ago would have forever changed the automotive world. Yes, because although it is born by chance, thanks to the commitment outside working hours of a small number of men at VW, the Golf GTI has marked a profound change in the way of understanding performance cars. You would no longer need nine zeros in your bank account and you would not have to give up the convenience of carry around friends and family, or maybe some luggage for a trip out of the city – the first GTI offered tons of adrenaline for everyone. The only requirement asked to you was to have enough guts to push the lightweight German hot-hatch where you never thought were possible, exploiting its discreet cavalry through mechanical feedbacks, long gone from the mechanics and engineering perfection to which we are used today.
Our friends arrive early and immediately park their MK1 next to the most extreme MK7, here in Clubsport trim and therefore stronger than a more pronounced aerodynamic kit and 265 horses. You can’t help but notice right away that those traits that have consecrated the image of the most beloved Golf ever, such as the red profile on the front grille, the squared seats and other details that you gradually find from one to the other, created to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the birth of this myth on wheels. The engine remains a 4-cylinder, but way bigger, heavier, and inevitably more powerful. The good old manual g’box (still available) has given way to a dual-clutch automatic, but traction is at front, albeit on the MK7 you have a self-locking diff. On paper it seems futile to make a comparison, but in the real world the emotions that give you both are so similar as different, at least as they come at you. The ’76 GTI is small and easy to handle, allowing you to throw it from one corner to another by sliding it and exploiting the low weight which stops just under a tonne. Holding low gears lets you use the maximum torque delivered by its 110hp and sat in the apparently barren interior you can feel the slightest variation of the road under the tires, trying in every way to find grip on the asphalt still wet from the morning dew. Tailgating, the MK7, equipped with summer tires, has to work out how to keep up with Grandma, especially in tight corners, where the front wheels are constantly looking for a grip that is hard to find, because of a difficult power to manage in these conditions. Shortly after, the road is wider and holding the higher gears you can exploit the elasticity of the 2-liter, unleashing 265hp with violence and enjoying the fast dual-clutch 6-speed.
Feedbacks – I said it before – are similar but different. What do I mean? Where the MK1 transmits every single mechanical warning, every single change in the road surface and takes you to understeer when you ask it to do battle with the laws of physics, the MK7 is more filtered, you drive it with a knife between the teeth without feeling the limit. It lets you using a much cleaner driving approach, though you enlarge your nose out of the corners (by turning traction control off), with the front that, thanks to the limited slip differential, better manages the distribution of the engine torque and with your right foot that holds down, being careful to keep the situation in the middle between the loss of grip and understeer. Two exceptional cars that sanction like the Golf GTI is deservedly on top of the food chain of hot-hatches for 40 years. Four decades have passed and if the bar of performance has improved steadily, fun and the purity of driving remained the main ingredient that every GTI can offer. That’s why these two cars are closely related – like a grandmother with her granddaughter, taking them out for a ride is a real moment to cherish, to live and to be repeated every time you can. And thanks to the fact that these cars are also exceptional for daily use, they’re able to make better even the most boring of your standard A to B.