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Australia’s track-focused Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport model will be known as the GTI 40 Years because locally HSV trades on its overseas name.
What’s in a name change? A couple of doors and some unique features, according to Volkswagen Australia public relations manager Kurt McGuiness, who confirmed to MOTOR the three-door Clubsport will become a five-door 40 Years for our market when it lands mid-year.
“It’s coming mid-year [and] will be the GTI 40 Years because obviously Clubsport is already a synonymous brand name out in Australia,” said McGuiness. “This will be a stand-alone model for our market, Germany is effectively building a special model for us and it will be five door.
“The other thing that will be a real kicker is that we will get the same 195kW engine that’s in the Clubsport and available in Germany [so] it will also be the fastest Golf GTI ever.”
For the six-speed-manual Golf GTI Clubsport that power upgrade results in a claimed 5.9-second 0-100km/h compared with 6.4sec for the DSG-only Golf GTI Performance and 5.2sec for the manual Golf R.
The Clubsport uses the limited-slip differential from the front-drive GTI Performance, but trades on aggressive aerodynamic modifications and extra power, without the all-wheel drive hardware of the Golf R that pushes weight from 1364kg (GTI Performance) to 1416kg.
Volkswagen Australia chose not to import the GTI Performance with the six-speed manual available overseas, however the Clubsport/40 Years that is tagged as moving the Golf “into the realms of motorsport driving dynamics” we understand has a much better chance.
What the 40 Years shares with the Clubsport is unclear, however. “There will be a lot of similarities but I’m not in a position to talk about spec at this stage, but it will also have some unique features for our car,” said McGuiness.
What is a sure thing is that the Golf GTI 40 Years will be price-positioned between the $47K Golf GTI Performance DSG and $53K Golf R manual when it arrives locally mid year.
