HATCHING A PLAN
We may have first seen the GTI badge in the mid 1970s, but it’s generally associated with the decade of Tony Hadley and Simon Le Bon, and specifically with either the VW Golf or the Peugeot 205.
Ironically, the go-faster Golf very nearly didn’t make it to production reality but its success ensured that it would continue into the 21st century, currently in its eighth generation.
It also ensured that every major European marque had its own take on the recipe, which was in truth pretty simple: take your mainstream front-drive hatchback in its largest-engined form and spice it up with a few extra horsepower to lift the performance above the regular offering. Add some red piping and send it to market.
In most cases that spicing up was achieved via fuel injection, often courtesy of Bosch, whose analogue K-Jetronic system was pretty much standard fit on any performance car back then and gave a useful marketing boost with that coveted ‘i’ giving a high-tech image.
When it comes to the pecking order, the Golf was the original and the Escort XR3i was the sales volume champion, but both were offered in two-door form only. If you wanted the practicality of four doors then you were out of luck… which is where the revamped MG marque came in. The MG Maestro may have got off to an awkward start before finding its feet in later 2.0i form when it challenged the Mk2 Golf, but it was of course built only in four-door form.
There were many early ’80s buyers for whom that was enough to tip the balance, but how does the MG shape up against the XR3i and GTI today?
FORD ESCORT XR3I
Launched in September 1980, the Mk3 Escort had notched up production of 823,000 by
