Golf GTi: VW marks 35 of years of hot hatch

The five-door version of the Volkswagen Golf GTi Edition 35 will be available in New Zealand. Photo / Supplied

The 35th anniversary model of the car that created the sports hatchback niche is expected to attract the same buyer interest in New Zealand as the 30th milestone model did.

Volkswagen NZ will land the limited-edition Golf GTI Edition 35 here next month, priced from upwards of $65,000.

General manager Dean Sheed wouldn't confirm the arrival of the hatchback, saying only that "we'd be silly if we didn't bring it in".

But it's understood that 50 examples of the five-door hatch only will enter the VW dealer network towards the end of August and sit between the standard GTI ($58,500) and Golf R ($73,500) models.

The Golf GTI Edition 35 broke cover at the recent Worthersee meet in Austria, a get-together of VWs past and present, including the original three-door Golf GTI of 1976.

The Edition 35 is powered by a detuned version of the Golf R's 2-litre turbocharged petrol engine, rather than an uprated GTI engine.

Unlike the all-wheel drive Golf R, however, the GTI Edition 35 will maintain the GTI's traditional front-wheel drive set-up.

The reworked engine produces 175kW of power and 300Nm of torque - up 20kW/20Nm from the standard GTI and down 13kW/30Nm from the R.

The anniversary car, with its DSG double-clutch gearbox, has a top speed of 247km/h and is understood to accelerate from zero to 100km/h in 6.6 seconds, placing it perfectly in between the GTI and R models.

The Edition 35 gets revised bumpers, dark light lenses, LED daytime running lights, glossy black grille and side mirror trim, new alloy wheels, reupholstered sports seats, a unique gear knob and "35" badging inside and out.

The 30th anniversary Golf GTI arrived in New Zealand early in 2007. Only 30 were allocated to this part of the world - one for each year of the GTI's existence - out of a factory production run of 1500 left- and right-hand-drive examples.

The 30th birthday theme was carried through to the car's output - its turbocharged 2-litre engine was up by 30bhp over the standard GTI.

But VW has dispensed with the same theme for the Edition 35.