GTI – three letters that stand for two icons of the automobile world: the Golf GTI and the Polo GTI. Often copied, never equalled. The originals come from Volkswagen.

The German manufacturer launched the latest version of the Golf GTI in 2013, and now, in a world premiere at the Mondial de l`Automobile in Paris (2–19 October), comes the launch of its compact but powerful brother, the Polo GTI. With the Paris debut Volkswagen is continuing the tradition of the ultra-sporty Polo which began almost 30 years ago with the legendary Polo G40 in 1985 and which is now culminating in the fourth generation of the Polo GTI. Power is supplied by a new 1.8 TSI engine, which at precisely 141 kW / 192 PS is 12 PS more powerful than its predecessor (1.4 TSI) and comes close to achieving the performance levels of the most powerful series Polo of all time, the Polo R WRC – the road-going version of the Polo that won the World Rally Championship for Volkswagen Motorsport at the first time of asking in 2013.

GTI on a par with the R WRC. With a top speed of 236 km/h the new Polo GTI only falls 7 km/h short of the 162 kW / 220 PS Polo R WRC, which is sold out. With both transmission variants, the new Polo GTI accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in 6.7 seconds, just a whisker short of the figure for the Polo R WRC: 0.3 seconds, to be precise. Yet the figures for the new Polo GTI's fuel consumption show just how amazingly efficient it is: 5.6 l/100 km (equivalent to 129 g/km CO2) in conjunction with the 7-speed DSG, and 6.0 litres (139 g/km CO2) with the 6-speed manual variant. And here the Polo R WRC (7.5 l/100 km) is finally overtaken by the new Polo GTI.