2025 VW Golf GTI: Buttons are back on the menu, smiles never went away

Even in an alternate timeline in which the average new car didn't cost more than $50,000 and weigh well more than two tons, Volkswagen's Golf GTI would stand above the norm. Here on Earth Prime, nine years after a weasel met a particle accelerator and everything started to get weird, the GTI shines as almost the perfect blend of performance and everyday practicality while keeping the footprint small and the sticker price affordable.

The GTI has just had its midlife facelift, making this generation the Mk8.5 if you speak Golfnerd. Even if you don't, you're probably familiar with the idea. But to recap, in 1976, someone at VW had the bright idea of giving the Golf hatchback a more powerful engine and better handling. The original GTI wasn't the first hot hatch, but it was the most influential, giving VW's humble Golf a halo that shone brightly when seized upon by that most 1980s of species, the yuppie.

The GTI has been a constant in the Golf range ever since. Here in America, it is the Golf range, along with the all-wheel drive Golf R, but more on that car another day. Americans used to buy regular Golfs—I have not one but two neighbors with Golf Alltrack station wagons, in case anecdote will suffice in place of sales data—but no longer in numbers that make importing the other cars economical. On the other hand, the US is now one of the largest markets for the GTI, VW told me, and last year, it saw sales grow by almost 50 percent.

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