Styling
Aside from the full-width light bar and illuminated nose badge, defining features of the wider updated Golf line-up, the Clubsport looks much as it did before. But this is no bad thing, because with its socking great roof spoiler, beefy front airdam with its hexagonal motif and those body-coloured arms sweeping in from the corners, the side decals and lower body kit, and the sizeable rear diffuser, the GTI Clubsport has masses of presence. Especially if you specify it in Kings Red premium metallic paint (£965) and sit it on a set of the glorious 19-inch 'Queenstown' alloys (£1,300, although the car in the pics is wearing £1,220 'Warmenau' 19s with a diamond-turned face... and they're nice too), whereupon it becomes the best-looking car in the range. Yes, including the R.
Interior
Again, the inside is as it was, save for the improved 12.9-inch infotainment system for all Mk8.5 Golfs, and - mercifully - the return of proper, physical buttons on the sports steering wheel, replacing those awful old haptic pads (weirdly, the R alone of the Mk8.5s retains these sinners against interior ergonomics). But, as with the Clubsport's exterior, this is not something to complain about because the rest of the cabin has just the right sporting ambience for a high-end hot hatch like this. The microfibre and hexagon-pattered upholstery with the red trimmings and 'GTI' emblems is thoroughly lovely, as are the deeply sculpted front bucket chairs, and Volkswagen cannily makes all the displays in the digital cluster and on the screen take on the same fiery hue in the sportier drive modes.
About our only complaint in the Clubsport is that it has the denuded, plasticky little shift paddles on its steering wheel that you'd get on any DSG-equipped, non-sports model, when the R has bigger, more pleasing items to use in this regard. So it seems you can't quite get steering-wheel-plus-gearshift-paddle perfection in the top two Golfs: you either have the clunky haptic pads and nice paddles in the R, or the far more preferable buttons and stubby levers in the Clubsport. Sigh.
Practicality
Practicality is not a problem in the Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport, because it has decent leg- and headroom in the back, while the boot is only marginally trimmed back from a regular Golf's 381 litres to 374 litres here, mainly to do with the backbox of the exhaust system. The main bugbear is that the only one of the four available performance Golf models that's available as an Estate is the R; you can't get the GTI, Clubsport or otherwise, in wagon form no matter what you do. Shame, because a big-booted version of this thing would be very, very high up on our own personal shopping list...
Performance
If you want to get hung up with on-paper stats, the Clubsport looks like it is on shaky ground. Before the facelift, both the GTI and the GTE developed 245hp, while the R kicked out 320hp. That meant the 300hp Clubsport was relatively strong in the range, being just 20 horses off the all-wheel-drive flagship and comfortably 55hp clear of the two lesser derivatives.
But the Clubsport has retained its 300hp/400Nm tune of the fabled EA888 2.0-litre turbocharged four-pot petrol motor in facelifted form, whereas the GTI has climbed to 265hp, the GTE to 272hp and the Golf R to 333hp. And it's in relation to that R where the case supporting the Clubsport has to do its hardest work; again, if you're laser-focused on published stats, the AWD hot Golf is now a full second quicker to 62mph from rest than the ultimate GTI is (4.6 versus 5.6 seconds).
But official numbers don't tell the full story. Because, aside from step-off traction benefits, once you've got the Clubsport rolling then it feels every bit as rabid and invigorating as the R. The powerful delivery is strong, smooth and beautifully linear from idle to redline, and weirdly the Clubsport sounds more vocal and angrier than the R, despite the fact our GTI tester didn't have an Akrapovic exhaust and the R (a Black Edition) we drove back-to-back with it did. It's the GTI Clubsport which therefore still feels like the enthusiasts' primary choice in the line-up, for all the improvements made to the R's chassis.
As to fuel economy, here (on paper) the Clubsport seemingly has the advantage, because the R is about 4mpg shy of it on official WLTP figures. However, on our same-day, same-route test drives, the R turned in 20mpg across 32 miles of driving, while the Clubsport achieved just 18.4mpg from 22 miles. But we're not citing this as a black mark against the 300hp GTI - in fact, it rather tellingly indicates how the two cars were driven: after a few explorations of what the R could do, we were back to the same old story of 'massively accessible and therefore just a little bit boring' as ever; but in the Clubsport, it positively encouraged a more, erm...
youthful driving style. And that, for a hot hatch, is a great, big, shining positive, isn't it?
Ride & Handling
Again, we're not trying to repeatedly kick the Golf R here; rather, we're just trying to prove that less is more, in terms of driven wheels and horsepower, when it comes to getting your driving thrills from a hot VW five-door. The R hasn't just been tweaked up to 333hp, but it has gained the twin-clutch rear axle of the 4Motion system, an upgrade we've seen bring marked beneficial effects to both the
Audi S3 and
Cupra Formentor with the same gear.
And yet, despite this system introducing more rear-axle interactivity to the four-wheel-drive Golf R, the Clubsport remains the more involving and exciting steer of the two of them. It's just more alive and more playful on the super-sharp throttle, and when you link up its mighty drivetrain and the adept chassis in harmony on the right roads and get the thing charging along, you know it's you as the driver who's elicited the pace from the car, and not the chassis hardware and electronics.
Not that the hardware Volkswagen has provided is slacking in any way. The damping is superb on the GTI Clubsport, while the XDS diff helps make the most of the grip the front tyres can provide to gift the Golf epic traction for a two-wheel-drive car. Like we said, once it's rolling the Clubsport feels every inch the match of some of the more powerful, all-wheel-drive rivals, and furthermore this GTI is fitted with some of Volkswagen's best steering we've ever encountered. Nice, meaty brakes too, so slowing it down is as impressive as speeding it up.
But because it's a Golf, fundamentally the GTI Clubsport still has to function as a comfortable daily driver, and thankfully it can do that job almost as well as it can tear up a good, challenging B-road. It's not the quietest machine at a cruise, with a bit of tyre roar to note, but in general the Dynamic Chassis Control adaptive damping (a £735 option) and general polish of the suspension set-up make this VW appealing in a wide range of driving scenarios. It's as capable and composed on lumpy back roads as it is either crawling around town or pounding along a motorway at 70mph, so it's a strong all-round dynamic showing from the Clubsport. As it ever has been, really.
Value
At £42,780 basic, the Clubsport is a little closer in price to the OEM R (£44,535) than it is to the regular 265hp GTI (£40,025), but as it drives appreciably better than either then we think it is the best-priced of the three petrol-powered hot Golfs (and let's not bother bringing the GTE into this...). Even if it's quite remarkable that, just three short years ago when we last drove the Clubsport, it started from £37,230 - more than five-and-a-half grand cheaper than it is now.
Verdict
Like any Mk8.5 Volkswagen Golf, the GTI Clubsport is markedly better than it was pre-facelift, but it's still not perfect. In the particular case of this high-performance variant, we'd prefer a more intuitive human-machine interface than even the improved 12.9-inch infotainment system can provide, we wish it had the paddle shifters from the Golf R, and we could with it starting from less than £40,000 in an ideal world. But other than that, there is no doubt in our minds: the best Golf Mk8.5 in the range, all things considered, is categorically the GTI Clubsport. It's a marvellous hot hatch and the new Golf which most readily reminds us how this particular nameplate has dominated its market sector for so long.
