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2016 Volkswagen Golf GTI 40 Years:: Five Little Facts

The special new 2016 Volkswagen Golf GTI 40 Years lands in Australia this week, following its international unveiling as a concept early last year.


The new birthday car made its production debut quickly after, in September, and fans here held their breath until February this year for the company's local arm to confirm an Australian debut.

You can read our Golf GTI 40 Years review right here, and enjoy these five little facts below.

In Europe, this vehicle is called the 2016 Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport, meaning we get a name unique to Australia.

HSV already owns the Clubsport naming convention in this country, so that meant Volkswagen had to go hunting for another moniker locally.

Volkswagen HQ in Germany actually took the lead on the project, too, and come up with the 40 Years tribute name.

As far as standard allocation goes, the five-door GTI 40 Years is effectively unique to Australia.

Although you can special-order a Clubsport in five-door guise overseas, the standard vehicle in other markets is a three-door. But, since we only get the five-door Golf, we only get the five-door 40 Years.

Volkswagen Australia went to the fans to give the new special's wheels a name for our market.

Measuring 19x7.5 inches, the wheels have been named 'Ruby' for Australia, rather than the "Brescia" name they wear overseas.

Volkswagen had more than 1000 entries from GTI fans via a Facebook campaign and the winning name makes a lot of sense for a few reasons: ruby is the stone you use to signify a 40th anniversary, and it's also the birthstone for the month of July, the same month the GTI 40 Years launches in Australia.

There will be a manual gearbox on offer - even though it is effectively sold out.

Volkswagen initially thought it would only be able to secure 400 DSG-equipped vehicles for Australia, but has managed to nail down 100 manual examples for the real enthusiasts. That brace of 500 vehicles is all we're getting.

With the 'overboost' function, the GTI 40 Years is, in fact, the most powerful Golf in Australia, beating the popular R model (even if it is only for ten seconds at a time).

The 2.0-litre, turbocharged four-cylinder engine generates 195kW and 350Nm under normal conditions, which climbs up to 213kW and 380Nm when the overboost function kicks in.

Watch for our review of the GTI 40 Years Edition later today.

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Trent Nikolic

Trent Nikolic has been road testing and writing about cars for almost 20 years. He’s been at CarAdvice/Drive since 2014 and has been a motoring editor at the NRMA, Overlander 4WD Magazine, Hot4s and Auto Salon Magazine.

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