There wasn’t supposed to be a Volkswagen GTI. We can credit the existence of this seminal hot hatch to a secret group of eight within the company who asked the question, “What if?” and, on their own time, built a sporting version of the then-new Golf hatchback named the Sport Golf. Volkswagen gave the project the green light in 1975, and with a projected run of just 5,000 units, the Golf GTI (which stood for Grand Tourer Injection) was born. The 110-hp tinder box with its tartan seats and golf ball shift knob made its debut at the Frankfurt International Motorshow in September of 1975, and, as they say, the rest is history.
Almost 50 years later, I’m wandering the grounds adjacent to the immense Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg, Germany, where the original GTI was conceived and born. I’m up to my eyeballs in all things GTI. Welcome to 2024 GTI FanFest, a celebration hosted by Volkswagen with the tagline “Icons Coming Home.”
Over 700 GTIs and their owners arrived from all over Europe and the U.K. for this love-in. Highlights included concept GTIs, wild customs, race GTIs, guest speakers, multiple vendors, pristine classic GTIs pulled from the Wolfsburg vaults, and a chance to sample VW’s legendary currywurst (a wiener with curry sauce) that, yes, has its own official VW part number.
Nostalgia is a wonderful thing, but what does the future hold for the Volkswagen GTI? While in Wolfsburg, I drove a 2025 GTI here (the first model not to be offered with a manual transmission – gasp!) and found the revised infotainment system to be a huge improvement over the much-maligned system that arrived with this Mk 8 GTI in 2022. The HVAC controls now live on the bottom of the screen, and the old, too-sensitive haptic buttons on the steering wheel have reverted to good old-fashioned physical buttons. Response time is faster, too. In all other aspects, the four-door Mk 8 GTI remains, in my opinion, arguably the best all-around car money can buy – fast, fun, frugal, comfortable, and imminently functional.
Yet an elephant is looming large on the horizon. The next-generation Volkswagen Golf (Mk 9) is set to break cover in 2028 as a fully electric vehicle (EV), which means the next GTI will no longer have four transverse cylinders going vroom-vroom and driving the front wheels.
Kai Grünitz, a Member of the Board of Management of the Volkswagen Brand responsible for Technical Development, says, “We know that GTI is more than just power because just bringing a lot of power into an electric vehicle these days is quite easy. We talked about, ‘Do we really need 300 kilowatts, 350 kilowatts?’ First of all, GTI is about dedicated design. The ID GTI Concept we brought, we bring most of these ideas into the real serious car.”
The ID GTI Concept on display here is a peek into what a future electric GTI could be like. The concept is built on VW’s current electric platform, and it differs from the current gas model in that the 20-inch wheels are pushed further toward the corners of the car, and the sides are taller due to the under-floor battery. GTI purists will be happy to know this concept is front-wheel drive. When the production car arrives, it will ride on a new upcoming scalable EV platform that will replace Volkswagen’s current electric platforms.
“Even more important than power is driveability. Sebastain Willmann, our head of chassis development, promised me this car will be a real go-kart, and I’ve driven one and can promise you the new GTI is an amazing car,” Grünitz continues. “But beyond design and drivability, there is what we call ‘secret sauce.’ We thought a lot about new ideas, small gadgets that bring a sparkle to the eyes.”
Indeed, the ID GTI Concept is handsome, and it was garnering plenty of attention at the 2024 GTI FanFest, so I parked myself beside the silver interloper to get a read on the festival attendees. I saw a trend. The younger folks were more accepting of this electrified GTI, while the traditional (ie. older) enthusiast’s sentiment was essentially, “They can have it. I’m driving mine ‘till the gas runs out.” No great surprise there.
Change is difficult, especially when applied to a scrappy front-drive performance icon that has brought joy and thrills to the faithful for nearly 50 years. But Volkswagen has some big plans to ensure its iconic hot hatch enters its EV era with the same spirit that made it such a lasting success.
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