The up! GTI is the best Volkswagen GTI product in years. Here's why! [Review]

What's up everyone ?

Welcome back to cartoon and welcome to the new Volkswagen G T I .

And in my humble opinion , this is the best G T I product V W has released in years .

And in today's video , we're going to find out why .

The main reason why I think this is the best G T I product V W has released in years is the fact that contrary to what other people think , I actually believe that this is the true successor to the Mark One Golf G T I .

And in order to better understand why I believe those things about the up G T I , I'm going to split up this video into five sections and we begin by talking about the design as was the case with the original Mark One G T I .

This up G T I is not radically different than the base version .

It only features subtle changes like a bit of lipstick next to the V W logo , some honeycomb grills all over the front of the car .

17 inch exclusive G T I wheels , a subtle roof spoiler on the back , some G T I badging and of course on the inside , the quite famous G T I upholstery .

It also features the steering wheel from a golf G T I .

But that's kind of it .

The second point that I wanna cover with this up G T I is the fact that V W has gone back to basics when building this car .

I mean , just look at it .

It's small , just like the original Mark one golf G T I was and it's got no fancy things on it .

Just basic level engineering .

And let me give you a few examples of what I mean on the back axle , the up G T I features drum brakes .

Why not considering the power this car has ?

They're perfectly fine .

When was the last time you saw one of this on a car ?

Hm or something like this ?

It doesn't even have a sports button in 2018 , but it does have something most cars miss nowadays , the ability to park in half the space you'd need to fit a golfing .

How about that ?

Now , let's talk practicality .

Even though it might not look like it .

This new up G T I is quite a practical car .

It has four doors , quite a spacious boot for such a car .

And just look at that idiot .

He sat in the front , adjusted his seat for him and then jumped in the back and there's enough leg room to be comfortable on a short trip .

Ain't that right ?

See , told you and the last thing I wanna cover before we hit the road is pricing because this car in the exact spec you see it here cost just €17,000 .

And even though it may not sound cheap to you , this car truly is because at this price point , you can't even buy a base polo around town .

This car is very easy to drive .

It's comfortable .

Even though it's riding on 17 inch wheels with slim profile tires .

The steering is light .

So is the clutch pedal and the gearbox is smooth to operate .

Visibility is top notch , seats are really good and the car is very refined overall .

But the real fun starts when you get this car on a road , a narrow twisted but first , some numbers , this car is powered by a three cylinder , one liter turbocharged petrol unit that's capable of producing 115 horsepower and 200 m of torque .

It gets the car from north to 100 kilometers per hour in about eight seconds or so .

It's not really relevant for such a car , but it only weighs a mech above one ton .

And that means unfortunately that as soon as I've sat inside this car , its weight increased by over 10% .

I'm sorry , that's actually quite true .

So as I previously mentioned , this car doesn't have any sport mode or sport , but in it , the steering has one setting .

So does the engine and so does the throttle response just like the mach one golf G and that's the beauty of this package because even though it doesn't have any of the hard tricks that all the other cars have , it's still very , very engaging to drive and this engine is absolutely wonderful .

It's got plenty of punch if you manage to give it between three and 4.5 1000 R PM .

But thanks to this wonderful six speed manual transmission , you can do that quite easily and it makes the whole driving experience even more engaging .

You can call this engine whatever you want .

But in this car , you can't really call it slow .

It's so fun to throw this guy around corners .

It's got that old school body roll to it because around town , like I said , the suspension is pretty comfortable and out here exactly the same .

One of the things I love most about this car is the fact that for once on this road , I can actually use the entire power , the engine has to give me , which let me tell you , it wasn't really the case when I drove the car and the M two on these roads and just look at this number full .

There's not much else to say is it ?

And I know there's been some controversy regarding this car .

Some people complaining that it's not powerful enough .

Other people complain about the drum brakes on the back and some people went so far as to complain about this car not being a performance version of the up for the track .

And I'm sorry , but if you are planning to buy one of these to take it to a track , well , you're kind of missing the whole point of the .

This is a car designed to be as fun as possible to drive on small narrow roads such as this one , it's not going to win you drag races .

It's not going to be faster around the track than a bigger hot hatch , for example .

No , basically , this is Volkswagen's way of saying that sometimes less is more .

But anyway , my friends , this is where I'm going to end this video .

I really hope you've enjoyed it .

I've had lots of fun making it .

If you did , please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to cartoon for a lot more content to come and until next time , take good care of yourselves and I'll see you around .