i'm johnny smith aka car pervert and this
episode is all about the new mark 8 golf gti so what is the market gti well the
market gti is obviously based upon the market which came out really quietly i
thought amidst the thing we're going through and the gti version is about to go on sale and being a gti it's identifiable because it's
got red lines and little trim bits everywhere and a bit of honeycomb on the front end i'll have a
walk around it in a second and some tartan inside but what's a little bit strange is that the
outgoing car as as called the uh mark 7.5 because it was face lifted a a few
times the the engine is the same pretty much there's a couple of different
tweaks to fuel pressure and uh actuators but it's 242 brake horsepower which
is the same as the performance pack on the last gti and actually amongst its peers not
very powerful it's hard to believe that when vw considered the gti golf and brought it out
in 1976 i think it was this 1975 motor show was unveiled at they thought they'd only sell 5
000 cars they ended up selling several million the gti came out in the uk in 79 and i know that because it was the year i was born and the year
that gary newman's hit single cars came out for some reason that really chimes with me what
a car what a song very cool now the last kind of i think my favorite modern gti was the mark v
where they stepped it up from the flabby mark iv and they made a point of of bringing bringing
themselves back to their roots mark 6 mark seven and mark seven and a half they feel like sort
of slight evolutions but then again the gtr has always been a evolution of the last it's never
been a rip it up and start again kind of car so although you've got an improvement in
suspension the the strut front end and the multi-link rear remains the same but the spring
rating is stiffer five percent at the front fifteen percent stiffer at the back
the subframes are now aluminium which makes it three kilos lighter and then you've
got this optional adaptive damping system and that's where they've really i
think spent the time and the detail on the new gti so although the mark 8 gti doesn't
have any more power than the mark seven and a half when you optioned it with the performance
pack so that's 242 brake horsepower 245 ps this apparently the market is more
about control it's more about damping and control than outright power because actually
on paper it has less power than all of its rivals the ford focus st the megan rs the hyundai i30n
all those cars have a lot more brake horsepower so if it was a horsepower battle the market
gti loses but the gti has always been about the package always now they have updated ever
so slightly this now pretty iconic ea 888 2 to turbo engine they've changed the particulate
filter and they've changed the fuel pressure and they've changed the actuators to magnetic
i don't entirely understand what they mean um but they've made the car more efficient
now the engine sound is ever so slightly synthetic but it doesn't sound awful and i
haven't really noticed it when you're in the gti first thing you notice is seats are one piece
for the first time secondly it is only now available as a five-door which is a bit of a
shame thirdly there's a lot of technology here and there's not many buttons it's all gone very
haptic and big screeny and it has taken me about 15 minutes to find how to turn on the climate
control which doesn't please me too much leaves me wondering whether or not they've they've
got done away with a few too many buttons but steering feels great despite the fact the steering
wheel is a little bit fatter than before which i don't think it needed to be yep you've got
unmistakable gti bits red accents uh if i go into my little haptic screen here look i can go
into sport mode i can also individualize this car now all mark 8 golfs have got electronic locking
differential but the gti comes as standard with a mechanical locking diff so there's a
combination of that going on and it's also got optional electromagnetically adjustable
damping which i'm going to try and explore you've got loads of display options
here i mean like loads g-meters you can put your fuel gauge over there you can
change your fuel gauge out for um well let's see what do we change our fuel gauge for all
sorts i mean yeah there's a lot going on here lap counter gear selector suggester i mean yeah
the damping in the options that i've just chosen i've just i've been in comfort around town and
i've just come out of town and gone into some back lanes on this quite muggy warm day
that's got a bit of rain here and there but as is always the way with the gti i think the
the the judgment of the ride is brilliant really pleasing just feels familiar yes the seats are
tarn but they're one piece now a bit like the up the vw up gti and the normal up i think
has one piece he's not sure i i like the look of them but i know the reality of
them for back passengers is not great there's a lot of information going on here
obviously you've got lane keep assist and all the other technology that these cars pretty much
seem to come with now the climate controls there if i press that and it's bloody confusing there's
an on off button there which i didn't notice for a long time because there's so many other options
going on it just bewilders you and i think that's a mistake but that's a mark 8 golf feature not a
gti specific feature so let's stick with the gti okay so when you look at the front
of it you've got your usual gti red lines along here you see black and chrome
badge this is new for vw for this year so the white and black or chrome and black
there's the gti badge of course this is another typical gti feature the honeycomb
kind of grill it's quite big chunky honeycomb and then if we move around here you
can't see him very well on a day like this so i'll see if i've got some footage of it in the
dark but this is like a cross of individual leds for fog lights and then you've got these
kind of ear kind of black trim trims here i'm not sure about the sort of low brow look i
don't know the mark 8 looks like it's got a bit of a sort of sad face what do you think
a couple of creases in the bonnet here and if we go to the side profile let's walk back
to the side profile here five door only for the very first time uh as a gti you've got this the
the little gti moniker on the back of the front um front wing and the germans have a name for that
and i've got it in my pocket what do they call that it's a funny name oh yes the small design
badge on the back of the front wing the sort of trailing edge is called a flitzer you've got black
cell extensions that are slightly contoured there and slightly contoured at the back there the
wheels they're okay they're not beautiful um they're not intriguing i don't think necessarily
they're 19s 235 35 19's on the front bridge stones the potenzas they are gripping very well indeed
i don't have a problem with the way they behave eco tip please check the gear change indicator
which is down there so it's always trying to be helpful even when have i got it in yeah i've
got it in sport mode and it's still trying to tell me to be more economical and the gti
has always been a pretty economical car given what its capabilities are and i think
it still is over 40 to the gallon combined so if you drive it carefully or you
put it in eco mode you can actually get quite a lot out of it it's that
elastic capability of a car like this same boot size as before so orders for the
mark 8 gti will begin in autumn in the uk and deliveries about a month after um but the
initial cars will be dsg equipped only with the so that's seven speed with the paddles
and although it will be pleasing and easy and useful if you use it for i guess
you know urban commuting and stuff i still would i still would have it with with a
six-speed manual save the three pedals you know if you want engagement and that's the
thing about this car if you're going for out and out power there are more powerful
hot hatches out there now they just really are if we climb in and i'll start
it up you've got a sort of you've got this breathing start button
down here so press that you get the cockpit and then you get the extra screen on the side
here in a vision cockpit with these kind of haptic buttons down here you've got climate
control modes for your gti modes like that it in sport uh climate which i found
to be incredibly uh complicated personally um you've got this the haptic buttons on the
top here as well for volume and for climate temperature and then you you can use the steering
wheel you can use the steering wheel buttons here to go through your different modes and their
haptic kind of feedback there's lots of haptic go on then there's that little panel here which is
your heated front and rear screens and your lights down here you've got your gti steering wheel
detail and of course there's lots of red because it's a gti you know i do like these seats headrests built into the seats with red detailing and
this honeycomb actually on the grill on the on the on the sort of fascia here smooth to
the touch which is a bit similar to i suppose the honeycomb design on the um front end thought
lamborghini were the ones all about the honeycomb and then here you've got the
the manual shift which is um optional uh dsg is what it will come with
initially but dsg will be a cost option uh down here we've got an adjustable cup
holder there is no sliding tray that i can see this is what the key looks like some people
care about keys it's sort of a asymmetric shape but vw have made decent keys for a long time i quite like that actually some expensive cars
have terrible keys there's a cubby just here which you put your phone in it looks like wireless
charging and it keeps it from rattling about and it's all rubberized and then out of view
almost i'm going to try and get my camera down here there you've got your usbc's pair
of there's no normal usbs from what i can see and there's but there's an old-school cigarette
lighter here a bit odd so the back end of the golf mark 8 gti has revised tail lights they've
got a nice little bit of detail in here on a bright day might not be to pick it up the
gti badge is directly below the volkswagen roundel again red because it's a gti the rear
bumper is apparently standard the same as all mark 8 golfs however the black
detailing at the bottom that you can see that's different that's quite deep actually and
the tailpipes are bigger and they're further away than the previous gti if that's your bag i think
the back end is probably nicer but the front end maybe isn't that's the way i'm
feeling right now oh the gti we do like the gti i'm not massively
taken by the way it looks on the outside i do love the way it drives very
much it's quiet too you know like um the loudest thing is probably apart from the
induction eyes when you really snort it like this apart from that it's um it's most probably
the air conditioning if you put it on now they don't say it officially but it's heavily
rumored that there will be a club sport version of this gti like the last version which will
probably have about 285 horsepower 280 horsepower so you could wait for that now i'm as
much as the golf r was a really really well put together car and effortlessly quick it
never quite lit my fire because i just don't think golf's fast golfs need to be four wheel drive
i just think it's sort of unnecessary really so as a consequence i always prefer the gti if you can't remember what the previous golf
gti looked like it looked like this at the front it looked like this at the back
and it looked like this at the side and driving germans are so neat with their gardens
i love the the the the obsession with detail that the germans have and sort of thoroughness and
neatness it's quite similar to japan in that way despite the fact that i got it in sport
mode i'm just going to double check i have yes in sport mode actually i'm going
to put it in my individual mode um it's still telling me that you know i should
come off the throttle for extra economy and things and i if i've got it in the sport mode
surely i don't care about that kind of thing so there's a bit of nannying going
on that i would rather not have see there's a mark seven and a half gti again
suddenly i've gone into a village full of gti's i do think that's a better looking car at the
front the back of this is maybe a little bit better not but they're not much different actually
the back of this is not much different to the the previous car as i'm entering wolfsburg the home of
volkswagen there are golfs everywhere of all types mark fives mark sixes mark sevens there was a mark
two on someone's front lawn we are in golfsville we really are so how do i feel about the market
gti i feel like it's been a an improvement for sure in suspension and cornering it's still so
satisfying to drive the steering is weighted just right the comfort is well judged the steering
wheel didn't need to be slightly thicker i don't particularly like its face but that's a
mark 8 thing over a mark seven and a half i'm not sure about having the seats as one piece visually
great but the reality of the practicality might be it might be hindered but on the whole yeah
i like being in a gti i do like being in a gto it's a good place to be it's a solid
bet it's a cliche thing to say damn it but it's true as i'm poodling through a faux tudor
german village thank you ever so much for watching this episode if you're not a subscriber why
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2020 Volkswagen Golf GTi MK8 Real World First Drive // Jonny Smith
