SPECIFICATIONS
Price on the road:
£19 995 (about R225 000)
Maximum speed:
234km/h, 0-100km/h: 7.2 seconds
Combined fuel consumption:
8.06 litres/100km
Maximum power:
148kW
London, England - Nobody is pretending that writing about cars is the most intellectually challenging job in the world (although some people might sometimes make it appear so) but once in a while a car comes my way that is so lacking in character that writing about it is like wringing adjectives from a stone.
I tried the recently face-lifted Mercedes C-Class the other week, for instance, but the reason you never read about it is that not only was it interminably dull but I simply could not figure out what had changed.
It was an automotive "spot-the-difference". I even parked the new car next to the pre-op model and still could not detect a difference.
The Golf GTI isn't quite as bad as that; it has character (albeit that of an ambitious actuary in a Boss suit with a squash racket on the parcel shelf) but it's still a toughie to write about.
For starters, it is quite difficult to tell it apart from the standard Golf - some red piping around a honeycomb grill and a half-hearted roof spoiler are the most notable giveaways.
More irritatingly, it does everything just so well - I can't really fault it in terms of performance, efficiency or quality. In fact this MkV is slightly better-made than the last one and, with its new, taut, multi-link suspension, it grips 'n goes better too.
And, with almost 150kW on tap from its turbo'd two-litre, there's more power than the MkIV (although that isn't difficult: a consumptive librarian had more oomph than that old crate), so it's really, really fast. But, despite all this, a drive in it never left me panting for more.
Ideally, if you were to meet your hot hatch at a party, you'd expect it to pinch your bum and try to stick its tongue in your ear - that's the promise inherent in the purchase of a Honda Civic Type-R or an Alfa 147 GTA. The Golf would ask after your kids and then invite you to swop business cards.
There must be something worth saying, some quirky detail, somewhere on this car, I thought to myself after yet another emotionless coupling on the A27. I stopped in a lay-by for a quickie. I stuck my hand up its bra and twanged its knicker elastic. Nothing. But then, wait... aha!
What's this hidden in the depths of the centre console? A bottle opener! A bottle opener! It's the first time I've seen one as a permanent fixture on a car. But why? The only bottles that need such an implement contain beer; surely the GTI isn't encouraging us to neck Coronas while on the move? The saucy minx!
I rang the media office. "I'd been wondering myself why they did that," said the lady who answered. "I'll look into it."
Clearly my joke about VW encouraging drink-driving sent the media office into a frenzy of damage control because, two minutes later, I received a call from the company's Deep Throat to assure me that, in the Golf's largest market - Germany - they still use bottle tops on almost all beverages.
So it would seem that this is just another example of the kind of sensible, thoughtful innovation - like damped grab handles and the Beetle's fascia flower vase - that VW is known for and which foster in their owners such unbearable smugness.
Shame, really. - The Indepenent, London