Mario James, Gleaner Writer
The 2008 VW Golf GTi. Exhilaration personified.
Way back in 1979, VW stunned the world by turbo-charging its two-door hatchback and calling it the GTi, virtually creating the hot-hatch class and setting the automotive performance world on its ear. The father of the sub-compact five-door supercar class was lithe, balanced and defined fun-to-drive.
Other manufacturers were quick to catch on, though, and soon there were Swift GTis, Cosworth Escorts, Turbo Starlets and Pulsars from Nissan filling out the void. In the meantime, the Golf (also known as the Rabbit) grew two doors (a body style), became a cabrio and soon lost its muscular image. Like most muscle builders that neglect their workouts, it got fat!
The fifth-generation Golf platform heralds a coming in from the cold. This new Golf is in every way reminiscent of that mighty up-start of the late '70s. Like the ad intimates, it's how V-Dub does tuner cars, 'YAAAHOWL' (OK, so I ain't Peter Stormer). More than just another pretty face, there is some pretty serious engineering here. Like the optional DSG transmission. An acronym for Direct Shift Gearbox, this bucket of spurs can be shifted by hydraulic pressure and has an automatic mode, but it has no planetary gear set and no torque converter. The car has no clutch pedal. And yet, at heart it is a manual box!
power to the wheels
Volkswagen manages the power to the wheels by the inclusion of two concentric wet type steel multidisc hydraulic clutches. They're computer-controlled, and basically bifurcate the box; one clutch controls even number gears (2,4,6) and the other the odd gears (1,3,5), plus reverse. Doing this allows two major advantages over a conventional automatic; first it allows the computer to select the next gear in advance, which greatly reduces shift time, and second, there is no torque converter, which means that the box does not have any inefficiencies due to slippage (there are windage losses, though, and the components are much heavier than those in its select and forget counterpart).
2008 VW Golf GTi's interior.- Photos by Mario James
This new box is making engineers around the world sit up and take notice; already BMW wants one for its M3, and Ferrari and other high-end car makers are champing at the bit to get this new technology into their cars. But that is not the only thing the Golf GTi has to offer; it has a new Electronic Stabilisation Programme that manages the prodigious power (200 real world wheel horsepower) that the Fuel Stratified Injection, four-cylinder turbo-charged engine unleashes when loud pedal meets bulkhead. Also, there is a tweaked version of their four link residing under the rear-end of this hot hatch. It is seems to have been a part of the ground-up redesign of the car, complementing the unitised construction that surrounds it and reducing body roll remarkably.
Interior-wise, the Golf is ... well to tell you the truth, Automotives didn't really notice. I saw the
Momo style steering wheel, the drilled and slotted race style pedals, and the stubby DSG shifter knob. Didn't even notice the guages. I fit in the seat, and that was it.
OK, first thing to notice is that the shifter knob isn't needed, 'cuz this sucka has shifter paddles behind the steering wheel. Yup, you too can shift like Hamilton. And in about the same time, too! Moving out of the Gleaner Company, we went out the gate; Automotives did not want to tear off the front air dam in that horrendously deep trench to get onto North Street. To make matters worse, we had a chaperone (brand new, $4.3 million dollar hatchback; do you think ITG is going to let this lead foot shoe this car unsupervised? NOT!). So we drove out of downtown Kingston on our way to the 'burbs of Molynes Gardens on our way to Red Hills Road where a prospective customer was waiting for his test drive. But we had all those roads in between to feel G's and roast some rubber, right? Wrong. We are in the silly season, and there was no way we could escape traffic. We were clear to Molynes Road Boulevard intersection before we saw daylight.
I didn't have to be asked.
We crawled through the intersection in first. On reaching the other side, Ali pedal met bulkhead in short order. Just as quick, we were cresting seven grand. Time for second; brush the little paddle at the fingertips with your right hand ... feel the soothing click of the control; meanwhile engine management has signalled the injectors to throttle back on the gas, and has retarded the timing. Somewhere in all this, the DSG 'box throws a relay, and the box shifts, while the car emits a thoroughly evil, sinister bark that's somewhere between a Beavis snicker and thunder. Volkswagen claims that the shift takes 8 milliseconds to perform. But what it feels like is the most perfect, precise shift that a human could ever perform. But GTi does it every time, and you don't have to have the skills of Alain Prost to do it. Coming down to the jink by Pete's, we grab fourth, screaming through the twisty bits and are unto the straight that takes us past Hughenden ... damn, this acceleration is intoxicating ... slam on the binders, and down the box to second for the sharp left hander by where the police station used to be... the turn in so sharp... handling completely neutral ... so tempting to just tromp the throttle again, but common sense prevails for the moment, and we go up the box to sixth and trundle along till we arrive at the Sunrise Drive intersection. Under power again, we launch the car, shifting at six five and feel the tyres pleading with us to back off, they are being soo tortured ... but this once sweet road has potholes, and cuts up the drive into a series of drag runs, which prove how effective the brakes are. Automotives now has seatbelt burns to prove it!
Like William Shatner says ... this car is just "BRILLIANT!"
