Volkswagen Golf GT 1.4 Sport Review

I remember when I was much younger; during the days when I had just passed my driving test, my friends and I were very much into cars, it was all we ever talked about. We would buy magazines, surf the Internet and we kept a constant lookout for "highly desirable" cars. Every time one went by, we would drool and then start to daydream about being full-fledged boyracer, wishing how our fathers were property tycoons.

The said "highly desirable" cars were often speedy, Japanese missiles, the so called "rice rockets." The Subaru WRX, Mitsubishi Evolution, Nissan Skyline, Toyota Supra and even the Suzuki Swift GTI (Yes, we are THAT old) were often at the tip of our tongues. There was absolutely no mention of the continental variants. Why? I have absolutely no idea. Ignorance, perhaps? In our books, only the Japanese were capable of producing fun, awesome looking cars.

Right™

Fast forward to the present day, cue the lights, dramatic music, and now, enter Volkswagen.

Plainly put, the VW Golf GT Sport 1.4 TSI DSG does not look the part of a fast car. A cursory glance reveals a simplistic, almost boring looking Silver hatch that might hardly qualify as a chick magnet. The more inclined however, will take note of the underlying facility that one might expect even before giving the gas pedal a good, hard prod.

Almost like magic it is, the hot, hatchback silhouette; the TSI badge on the rear tailgate and a fairly discreet GT Sport tag up front. Is that a smile we see?

Mechanics

Under the bonnet lies a 1.4 litre, "Turbo Stratified Injection" engine complete with a 6-speed DSG. This, ladies and gentleman, is a dream. The fact that it is only 1.4 litres, makes it even more dreamy. How can a 1.4 litre car ever be dreamy, you might ask?

No. This is not an ordinary 1.4 litre. The engineers at Volkwagen, perhaps while sipping back a couple of Bavarian beers, contemplated on the possibility of a turbocharger AND supercharger working individually in an effort to induce more air into the engine, coming together to produce an extraordinary amount of forced induction into the rather small engine.
The result, Volkswagen claims, is the amazing ability to yield power as much as a car almost 2.3 litres in capacity.

Thank heavens.

The result is nothing less than 170, European bred horses at a walloping 6000rpm and a staggering 7000rpm rev limit. More importantly are the 240Nm worth of smile inducing, heart pulsating, girlfriend (or boyfriend, whichever you prefer) shrieking torque from a very low 1750rpm!

This little darling of an engine works by first activating the mechanically powered supercharger to overcome the initial inertia and turbo lag inherent in a small capacity/moderately sized turbocharged engine. This effectively paves the way for a bigger amount of boost by the turbo, where it is able to sufficiently kick in at higher rpms, thus releasing more power to catapult you far off into the sunset.

Pretty amazing stuff, and if you think about it, not at all very complicated.

It does not end there, this sweet dream continues with three other letters. D, S and G. Put them together and you get DSG - Direct Shift Gearbox. In today's rising number of competitors, the DSG is the original version of the dual clutch system from the Volkswagen group of vehicles. A twin clutch self-shifter simply means the car functions like an automatic without the need for you to shift gears, but with the speed, efficiency and direct mechanical linkage of a manual.

There are two shafts, each with alternating gears (Shaft A holds gears 1, 3, 5 while Shaft B holds gears 2, 4 and 6). When used in full automatic mode and in first gear, the computer pre-selects second gear even before the transmission shifts up, yielding smooth, instantaneous gearchanges that have left the fastest of racecar drivers flabbergasted.

How does 8 milliseconds sound like to you?

Even drift King Keiichi Tsuchiya once remarked that he could not beat the shifting speed of the DSG following a straight-line battle between two Golf GTIs - one being a manual, and another equipped with a DSG.
Driving Impressions

And so, with TSI, DSG and all that jazz, coupled with the legendary Golf Mark V platform that isn't very different from that of the GTI, the car handles (yet again) like a dream. This from the time you step into the car, all the way past 180km/h - the Golf remains as stable as a rock.

With this much power from this puny engine, I was not too bothered by anything else. Neither were my 4 passengers, 3 of whom were riding comfortably at the back. Further back, and by that we mean the boot, we each had a pair of inline skates, 3 duffel bags, a water cooler and many, many straw mats.

Throw it into a corner and you will find that bodyroll is almost absent. Not completely, but much better than some of the Golf's Japanese counterparts for sure. You will also find that last minute, harsh steering adjustments mid-corner will not endow your future GT Sport with a life of its own.

Balance is the word of the day, and the multi-linked rear is tuned to be just a tad harder than you average, run-of-the-mill continental comfort hatch for that sporty, neutral feel through corners and over rough patches while not having it turn into a bone-shaking, tail-sliding maniac.

Wonderful.

Steering feel is awesome. It is not too light, and at the same time not too heavy. Comfortable for any driver of any sex, and of any level of speed fetish.

Significant enough is the lack of road noise, that if you stop paying attention to the lovely dials highlighted in blue behind the steering wheel while allowing yourself to be caught up in conversation or song, you will find yourself careening past the speed limits in no time.

Law-abiding citizens need not worry, for prodding the left pedal in an effort to slow your Vee-dub to within legal velocities, even when done suddenly, will not result in a second meal and a huge bill from the cleaners. The entire braking process was clean and crisp, very much like a freshly ironed white shirt.

The only bad point about this car would be the over-servoed hydraulics working overtime, making the brake pedal overly sensitive, but despite this, the Golf almost always gives you that level of confidence to rely on it's emergency avoidance facilities.

Why the GT Sport?

For $102,500 (price correct as of 31st January 2008) there aren't many other alternatives that match the capabilities of this machine. You might raise your hands in protest that it is after all, a 1.4 for the price, but consider that it might be the only 1.4 litre that does 0-100km/h in under 8 seconds with a full complement of passengers, luggage and a tank of gas.

It might also be the only 1.4 litre that yields 122.3bhp per litre while returning less than $750 a year in terms of road tax dollars.

Most importantly, it might be the only petrol-engined vehicle around that gives unsuspecting Mercedes turbodiesels, 2.3-litre sport sedans and large turbo-ed drag-mobiles with no "low end" the big boot while returning you with 11-13 kilometres to the litre when your fuel tank shows empty.