Is This the Ultimate Golf?

The Ultimate Golf!

The VW Golf MK8 GTI Club Sport is a very understated car. It’s designed for all sorts of tasks. Driving to a business meeting, or to go for a blast on the B roads. Whatever the task, this car delivers!

Exterior

For a start this club sport just looks so much better, I think, than the standard GTI. It's so much more aggressive! Starting with this down here, they've got rid of the fog lights for more cooling, then we've got these little flick ups here, it's just a little thing but to me it makes the whole front look more angular more aggressive. As you move down the side of the car the whole thing sits 15 millimetres lower, that's 10 millimetres lower than a GTI, and 15 millimetres lower than the standard golf. Mark 8 golf wheels are standard 18-inch Richmond rims but these are one of two options for 19-inch rims so these are the Adelaide design. At the back of the car there is a new rear wing that strikes a great balance between subtle and full Civic Type R. It also adds the club sport's overall reduction in aerodynamic lift. Lower down the tailpipes are oval instead of round and they're pushed slightly wider apart.

Under the bonnet well it might not look like much it's a sort of sea of generic black plastic there's no sort of GTI logos on this squishy black cover either. VW are also recommending that you run it on 98 fuel as opposed to 95 for the standard GTI the result of all this well we're up to 296 brake horsepower and 295 pounds foot of torque. That's 54 brake horsepower and 22 pounds foot uplift over the standard GTI as a result! 0-60mph in just 5.6 seconds and for reference the standard gti only manages to do the same sprint in 6.4 seconds. One other thing that is club sport specific is that its only available with a seven speed DSG. Anyway what about the interior.

Interior

The nice thing is that once you get into here this still feels like a gti it's no stripped-out racer despite being a club sport and you get that lovely welcoming feeling in here. It's something I think perhaps to do with all the blue lighting which I remember I think came in on the mark iv golf GTI. There's just something soothing about the atmosphere in here and now with the sort of ambient lighting you've got in the doors as well it's just a lovely place to be.

Unfortunately they haven't actually changed the graphics on this screen to a club sport GTI it's just a standard GTI so it's got the same front bumper grille which is a bit of a shame you thought they could have done that really I do love the screen in here though you can change the way that it looks by tapping the view button on the steering wheel here you can have the two classic dials here or my favourite which is a single big central rev counter with a speed in the middle and then you can configure the ones either side of it other things well they've also quickened up the steering in here not overall so it's still 2.1 turns lock to lock, but the ratio is now 14 to 1, so it's just just a bit quicker bit nippier.

Driving

Of course there have been some changes over the standard car at the rear, the club sport has new bearings in the dampers, new wheel mounts and newly configured control arms while at the front, the negative camber has been increased to 1.2 degrees. You can feel the urgency about it there's a sharpness of response to all your inputs that makes it feel different to the standard GTI. As I mentioned, we've got more power and torque in this club sport but also the DSG gearbox they've given that shorter ratios which again adds to the keenness of the car. The paddles on the back of here are better than I remember in the past, they're still little plastic items they're not exactly wonderful but they’re very tactile. The brakes are now bigger 357 millimetre discs they're also slightly lighter because of the way they're built up, which obviously helps with unsprung mass. They've also retuned the feel of the brakes so you don't get that over sensitive over servo’d feeling that a lot of vag products seem to have, and it gives a much nicer more progressive feel through the pedal travel.

Let's talk about how the traction is managed in this other than obviously with your right foot. We have got a proper mechanical limited slip diff but electronically actuated. It matches the rest of the car in the way that it doesn't instantly sort of grab the front, it doesn't make it really snatchy through corners, it just gives it a smoothness as you apply the power.  The MK8 Golf GTI Club Sport makes those everyday tasks more thrilling and exciting, as well as making you want to take it out on a weekend drive while the sun is setting.

View this today at our car dealership, Otter Vale Motor Services. It’s a Golf not to be missed!

Reviewed and Photographed by Tom Stroud