Volkswagen Golf GTI Edition 50: Our fastest FWD road test yet
How you perceive the Edition 50, with its £48,075 asking price and ’Ring raider status, will come down to your expectations. Anybody hoping for a reprisal of the celebrated Mk7 GTI Clubsport S (lauded by many at the time as a front-drive Porsche 911 GT3) will be disappointed. For a start, the Edition 50 comes with back seats. And while it gets new 19in wheels and a unique tune for its DCC Pro dampers, it is otherwise built to the same mechanical specification as the GTI Clubsport. And it isn’t offered with a manual gearbox, as the Clubsport S was. It is just a touch more ordinary.
Which isn’t to say boring. Volkswagen has taken the EA888 unit – now designated ‘Evo4 LK3’ – to 321bhp. Add the optional Performance Package that allegedly saves 25kg (more on which in a moment) and the GTI’s power-to-weight ratio reaches a heady 222bhp per tonne. It’s the greatest of any Golf in the line-up, though the flagship, four-wheel-drive R continues to be the most outright powerful, with 329bhp (and a notably a lower starting price).
That power, and 310lb ft of torque, continues to flow through a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox, marshalled by VW’s XDS+ brake-based torque-vectoring system and the clutch-based VAQ that mimics the effect of a mechanical limited-slip differential by locking one driveshaft to the differential gear carrier.
So the Edition 50 has the raw ingredients to be very quick indeed. The Performance Package is then the potential sprinkling of stardust. It lowers the body by 5mm versus the GTI Clubsport, increases the spring rates, dials in notably more negative camber, courtesy of special wheel carriers, and introduces a bespoke tune for the highly configurable DCC dampers. With the pack, the chassis also gains a more secure inboard mounting for the multi-link rear axle’s lower transverse link, for better lateral wheel control. Stiffer top mounts for each strut and stiffer front-axle lower wishbone bushings for boosted steering feel are adopted as well.
And you also get a part-titanium lightweight exhaust system – not to mention new calibrations for the power steering and stability control systems, extended to include a ‘Special Nürburgring’ drive mode. And, of course, there are new hardcore tyres – perhaps the most meaningful addition.
With its 50-litre tank brimmed, our test car trod the scales at 1419kg – 26kg less than the claimed weight for the Edition 50 before you account for the Performance Pack.
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