Mk 3 GTi :)

[pentoman]

It's been a while since I drove one of these properly (3 years ago the family had a Colour Concept which I remember somewhat vaguely) though we have 3 mk 3's, which I use often and are lovely but far from driver's cars, right? .

I just drove a friends P-reg one back to him after it was in for repair and various noises (not surprising at 150,000 miles..) and was expecting it to be very average.

Magazines drone on about GTi's being poor now. I've driven Mk 4 turbo petrol & diesel GTi's and thought they're not that bad, perhaps just slightly on the soft side. Competent. I drove a Focus on the road and at castle combe race track just recently and it's somewhat better I guess, but still more competent than 'fun'. I drove a BMW Mini One, same story.

I was worried that this is how fun hatchbacks are, and I would never desire owning one. Is this what gets motoring hacks so excited? A 1.6 Focus? Extremely competent and extremely dull? A Mk 4 Golf must be better than a Mk 3 though, yes?

All was better when I drove this Mk 3 GTi though. I really didn't think about it at all and was concentrating on what I would pick up from Tesco when I met the owner in the car park. I unassumedly could've been stepping into a Corolla, Mk4 GTi or, indeed, Focus.

But without paying any attention, my God! I think VW actually developed this GTi, rather than putting a generic bigger engine in it and bigger alloys. It's really quite different to a Mk 3, but mostly it's just fun! Fun that i can't remember in a recent hatchback. When I first turned the wheel, the whole car and my body turned with it. This is how it should feel. The wheel simply telling the chassis - no matter how competent - to turn is not so fun. The whole car should feel connected to itself, and to you.

(Engine is effective and pleasant enough with noise/harshness not being much of a worry in a GTi, but no wonder-unit. Not really slow, but still not much faster than a Mercedes 190E, somewhat sadly.)

More importantly though I discovered something that I had not expected and forgotten about - steering feel! I wasn't looking for it, it was just there, letting me know I could go faster, even though it hadn't occured to me cruising in storming rain through a grey dusk. Even though I could not see where I was going, I could still feel where i was going. I was astonished by how much I wanted to keep driving the thing, as I thought that was just a feeling motoring writers used with artistic license when describing everyday cars.

So shame on VW for the Mk 4 creating a 'halo effect' of badness on the Mk 3, which was not created as a tenuous marketing-mobile way back in 1991.

I hope you've bothered to engineer the Mk 5. And I hope you don't try to make it 'outhandle' a Focus or Mini - pull your finger out and make it drive like a bloody Golf GTi.

responses please

Russ
'86 190E, '62 Elan

P.S. Is a focus ST170 a lot better, or just a faster 2.0 focus? Are any new hatchbacks fun? Is a 306 GTi much better than a TD or XSi apart from speed? Pleeeeaaasssseeee....!

P.P.S. Reference to Corolla is unfair, as the hatchback I have most enjoyed driving ever was in fact a rusty G-reg Corolla GTi-16.


N.B. sorry for double post in general gassing, didn't mean to go there

[iguana]

Supprised it impressed you, the general consensus is that Mk3 Golfs are sh*te.

The Gti doesnt have much power, although the 16v & Vr6 do make up for that, all are far far too wallowy as standard tho.

A properly soted Vr6 or 16v can be a great wagon tho.

[anarchystorm]

The main problem for the Mk 3 was the weight and that nasty 2.0 8v engine that really had no real power.

Saying that, the Mk3 16v was a far better engine and great in a lighter car like mine. The VR6 was ok but again, the 2.8 is a lot less nice to drive than teh 2.9 out of a Corrado.

The Mk 3 is actually a really boring car to drive and also quite boring to look at too.

I would either get a Mk1 or maybe look at something newer... the Mk 3 just doesnt cut it