COMBINE THE PRICE TAGS OF THE contenders in this test, including options, and you reach a grand total of £96,820. And no, Dean Smith didn’t forget to photograph a car. Or two. Such are the peaks the market continues to scale that a pair of seemingly small, punchy specimens start at forty grand apiece. Then hurtle towards fifty with a handful of extras.
Plenty of people might never notice, leasing either of these for circa £500 a month rather than buying outright. And as hot hatch and coupe icons alike drop from the price lists with worrying frequency, you might even argue we should be thankful this test remains possible at all.
Each car represents the latest iteration of a very familiar recipe. The Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport is the firm’s topmost front-wheel-drive hot hatch and adds over 50bhp to the regular GTI with 296bhp and 295lb ft peaks from a tuned version of the familiar EA888 2-litre four-cylinder turbo engine. Here it’s mated exclusively to a seven-speed DSG transmission with VW’s VAQ differential newly gathered into a dynamics management system for more precise reactions. The headline is a 13-second reduction in Ring lap time over a stock GTI, but buyers are more likely to notice the dashing aesthetic makeover. A 15mm drop in ride height, more aggressive camber up front and an assertive (and functional) rear
