If you walked into the CARkeys office and brashly asserted your opinion that the current Golf is an entirely better car than the one it replaced, you wouldn't find anyone to disagree with you.The same would apply if you specifically mentioned the Golf GTD. We quite liked the old GTD, but this one is superior in many respects. For a start, turbo lag, which was one of the least appealing features of the previous car, has been much improved. Maximum power has risen to 181bhp, the 0-62mph time has dropped by 0.6 seconds to 7.5 seconds, and official fuel economy and CO2 emissions are far better than before at 67.3mpg and a remarkably tax-friendly 109g/km.That last figure means that annual Vehicle Excise Duty payments from year two onwards are just £20. If you had suggested at any time in human history before, say, the 2008 credit crunch that such a thing could be said of a 181bhp car with the letters GT in its name, you would have been burned at the stake.If you're going to aim for 67.3mpg you might as well buy a Golf BlueMotion. Impressive fuel economy isn't really the point of this car. But during this test I found it very difficult to drop below 50mpg (I calculated 52.7, the trip computer modestly suggested 51.0). And I wasn't hanging about, nor was I puttering along motorways at a steady speed.No, on one day I drove from Argyll on the west coast of Scotland to Wick, which is right up near the top. And the next day I did the same thing in the other direction. There were lots of hills and about a billion corners. The weather was variable, often dismal. None of this was conducive to good fuel economy. And again I say to you that averaging over 50mpg was child's play.So that's nice. But in one way this GTD is very similar to the last one: it doesn't feel like much of a hot hatch. It certainly looks like one, and it often sounds like one. The engine is very quiet most of the time, but when pushed it starts growling rather pleasantly, and its tone becomes quite shiny and almost frantic if you exceed 4000rpm.(Not that you normally would. I'd driven the car for nearly 200 miles before I discovered this feature. There isn't much point in going beyond 4000rpm because after that the engine actually produces less power the harder you rev it.)Despite the looks and sound, the GTD isn't at all sporty to drive, and the reason - as so often with German cars - is that the front suspension is too soft, as if whoever designed it was told that the engine weighs many kilograms less than it actually does.The effect, on anything other than the smoothest road surfaces, is that the nose of the car is still recovering from the last bump it encountered at the point when you'd prefer it to be concentrating on turning into the next corner. And through that corner there isn't enough control of body movement to make the GTD turn as accurately as it looks like it should.You can still make good time on a twisty road, but that's more because of the strong acceleration the engine can provide as you go on to the next straight than because of any particular ability in the corner itself. (On that subject, the car can take quite a bit of power in mid-corner, but if you overdo this, particularly on a damp surface, understeer takes over very rapidly, and you have no choice but to back off if you want to stay on your own side of the road.)The GTD is quite a good car, and I enjoyed driving it on those two long-distance runs. But if you're thinking of buying one you have to accept that it's not as much of a hot hatch as it appears to be, otherwise you're going to be very disappointed. Engine 1968cc, 4 cylinders Power 181bhp Transmission 6-speed manual Fuel/CO2 67.3mpg / 109g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 7.5 seconds Top speed 143mph Price £26,220 Details correct at publication date
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