2025 Volkswagen Golf GTI review: Australian first drive

The 2025 Volkswagen Golf range, which wears the ‘Mk8.5’ designation, does as the name suggests and brings a range of subtle updates to the Mk8 Golf first introduced in Australia around the middle of 2021.

As is so often the case, Volkswagen has rolled out incremental updates to specifications since then, but this is the first ‘real’ update to the Golf GTI, bringing with it new bumpers, head- and tail-lights, new alloy wheel designs, and overhauled infotainment.

For hot hatch fans, the headline act has to be the revised powertrain. Still a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder, as has long been a GTI staple, but now bumped up to 195kW and 370Nm.

That’s a 15kW boost over the Mk8 GTI of last year, and matches the outputs of the related Skoda Octavia RS while outgunning the Cupra Leon VZ… for now, at least.

With no groundbreaking changes, the Golf GTI balances the strengths the model was always known for, while freshening up a few key areas to keep rivals at bay.

The Volkswagen Golf GTI comes in a single specification level, priced from $58,990 plus on-road costs, or around $2900 more than the model it replaces.

Alongside the 15kW power bump, the new model also picks up a larger 12.9-inch infotainment touchscreen with digital assistant features (up from 10 inches previously) and 19-inch alloy wheels (replacing 18s, though 19-inch alloys formed part of the old model’s runout pack).

The GTI also comes with features including adaptive suspension, GTI-tuned progressive steering and drive mode selection, GTI-specific bumpers and slightly different tail-light internals, LED ‘plus’ headlights, front sports seats trimmed in fabric with GTI-specific tartan inserts, 30-colour interior ambient lighting, and tri-zone climate control with rear air vents.

Optional equipment covers features like a $1900 panoramic sunroof, the $2000 Sound & Vision Package, which adds a head-up display, 360-degree camera, and 12-speaker Harman Kardon sound system, and $3900 Vienna Leather Package that brings leather seat trim, front seat heating and ventilation, and an electrically adjustable driver’s seat.

There’s plenty of life left in the hot hatch segment, but the Volkswagen Group plays a key part in this. In-house rivals include the Skoda Octavia RS, which wears a slightly larger liftback or wagon body, priced from $62,990 drive-away. There’s also the Cupra Leon VZ, specced more like the pre-update Golf in terms of performance, with a sharp $54,990 drive-away price on MY24 examples at present.

Away from the VW stable, you could get into a Hyundai i30 N hatch from $50,000 or sedan from $52,000 before on-road costs. Hyundai offers a slightly beefier 206kW and 392Nm, plus the option of a six-speed manual or eight-speed dual-clutch auto, unlike the auto-only VW cars.

Subaru’s WRX range may be sedan only, but kicks off from a low $48,190 plus on-road costs. The 202kW/350Nm output from Subaru’s 2.4-litre turbo engine is paired with all-wheel drive, giving it a traction advantage when conditions are less than ideal.

Otherwise, the Golf goes into bat against the front-wheel-drive Honda Civic Type R and all-wheel-drive Toyota GR Corolla. Both carry premium price tags, with the GR Corolla starting from $67,990 with a manual transmission or $70,490 with an eight-speed auto, while the manual-only Civic is priced at $74,100 drive-away, putting both closer to the Golf R in terms of hot hatch hierarchy.

As Volkswagen loads up on Mk8.5 Golf stock, now is the prime opportunity to snag a deal on a runout or ex-demonstrator Mk8. You can view the full range of new and used Volkswagen Golfs for sale on Drive Marketplace.

Click here to find your nearest Volkswagen dealer if you’re ready to check out a Golf GTI in the metal. If you’re looking for a hot hatch, some time in the interior and behind the wheel of the Golf might make a big difference in your decision-making process.

If you're looking for more pricing, specifications, and the latest offers on the Volkswagen Golf range, click here.

The interior of the updated Golf GTI is immediately recognisable as a Golf, and of course, there are plenty of GTI-specific touches to help give it a more sporty flavour.

Standard equipment includes cloth-trimmed, manually adjustable sports seats. These are finished in a black, grey and red colour combo with red stitching. As with every GTI before it, there are also tartan fabric inserts, of course.

Alcantara inserts on the doors, perforated leather with red stitching on the flat-bottomed steering wheel, and a mesh effect trim panel across the dash all contribute to the premium, sporty theme.

The rest of the package is as you’ll find in any other member of the Golf family, which is part of the reason the GTI makes such a good all-rounder.

The front seats are supportive through corners without locking you in with unrelenting force, and they’re almost as easy to get in and out of as a base-model Golf’s regular seats. It does feel a little off for the GTI to go without power adjustment for the driver’s seat at this price, when the cheaper Golf R-Line includes it, but power adjustment and leather trim are just an options package away.

Front storage is good without being incredible. There’s a vented wireless charger at the base of the centre stack with a hinged lid to ensure your phone stays put during demanding driving. The small gear selector toggle doesn’t free up as much storage as you might think, but you still get easy access to a pair of cupholders, plus a small lidded console that doubles as a height-adjustable armrest.

The level of standard specification is high with three-zone climate control (although the rear adjusts for temp only, not fan speed), 30-colour ambient lighting, USB-C charge ports front and rear, a fold-down rear armrest with cupholders, felt-lined door bins, seatback map and phone pockets, keyless entry with push-button start – and as a little Easter egg, the start button pulses like a heartbeat before you start the car. Something lower-grade Golfs don’t do.

Like the front of the Golf GTI, the rear is comfortable and spacious. Adults could easily settle in for an extended road trip without any hassles. Getting in and out is easy with tall, upright door apertures, and there’s generous knee and head room.

The sporty front seats do restrict forward visibility from rear seat occupants a little, but overall, it's a reasonable place to spend time.

Boot space is also quite practical at 374 litres of available storage. That’s just a little less than you get in a Hyundai i30 N sedan (464L) or hatch (381L), but far more than you’ll find in a GR Corolla (213L).

The GTI retains the helpful features you’ll find in a regular Golf too, like bag hooks, LED lighting, tie-down points, and a space-saver spare wheel under the boot floor.

One of the biggest changes to the Mk8.5 Golf range comes via the infotainment system. In the GTI the old 10-inch screen has been replaced with a new 12.9-inch display. Software has also been overhauled with Volkswagen’s latest software driving the system.

Personalisation has been made a priority, so it’s now much easier to configure the system to your personal preference with layout options and shortcut buttons that the user can define.

As before, the system offers access to wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, plus comes with Bluetooth, inbuilt navigation, and FM/DAB+ radio. Volkswagen’s connected services and ‘Ida’ personal assistant are bundled in too.

Volkswagen has pledged it would add more physical controls and not rely on touch interfaces for future models, and the Mk8.5 Golf range is a transitional product. Gone are the frustrating steering wheel touch buttons, replaced by physical controls, but access to climate controls, drive modes, and more are still navigated via the touchscreen display, or in the case of temp and volume controls, touch sliders at the base of the screen.

It’s a step in the right direction, though still not quite the ideal balance of touch versus physical controls. Faster software and a much more responsive screen help make the system easier to use than when the Mk8 Golf first arrived.

As standard, the Golf GTI is fitted with a seven-speaker sound system, but upgrading to the Sound & Vision Package brings a much stronger 12-speaker Harman Kardon audio system, plus a head-up display.

The standard 10.2-inch instrument cluster can show a range of display layouts for info like speed, tacho, fuel, and user-selectable trip data, maps, track info and more. There are a lot of set-up options to choose from, but once it’s dialled in, you can easily set and forget.

The Volkswagen Golf range hasn’t been retested by ANCAP with this latest update, and carries a safety rating from 2022. As ANCAP raises the five-star threshold every few years, this older rating may not be the equivalent of a 2025 result.

When tested, the Golf range saw strong results across the board with an 88 per cent adult occupant protection rating, 87 per cent for child occupant protection, 74 per cent for vulnerable road user (pedestrian) protection, and 76 per cent for safety assist systems.

The Golf GTI comes with dual front airbags, front and rear side airbags, full-length curtain airbags, plus a centre airbag between front seat occupants to reduce the risk of head clash in an accident.

More than just features in a list, Volkswagen’s implementation of safety tech, and the understanding of what a driver should take care of and where the car should intervene, shows a maturity and competence that not every automaker can match.

The Golf GTI is fitted with front and rear parking sensors, a reversing camera, autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection, adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go, Travel Assist lane centring, emergency lane-keep assist, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, and an automated self-parking system that goes beyond the steering wheel control of the regular Golf models and adds automated gear selection with accelerator, brake, and steering control.

On the road, the systems are well controlled and natural-feeling. Although the launch drive on winding roads didn’t give a huge opportunity to test out things like Travel Assist, the lane-keep intervention felt natural. The system doesn't alarmingly tug at the wheel, and seems to cope well with rural lane markings.

One very valuable feature missing from the Golf range is speed limit recognition. Always handy when covering unfamiliar roads. Volkswagen has started to roll this technology out on other models, but the Golf misses out for now.

Volkswagen lists official fuel consumption at 7.2 litres per 100 kilometres in combined highway/city driving. For the Mk8.5 Golf, that’s a 0.2L/100km increase over the old Mk8.

That’s still a decent figure for a potent hatch with 195kW at its beck and call.

Your consumption will vary greatly depending on conditions. The launch drive we undertook isn't a truly representative daily drive loop with long cruising sections broken up by hilly, winding, hard-driving roads.

In touring stints, we saw consumption as low as 6.7L/100km. Driving hard on mountain road sections that figure more than doubled, pushing past 15L/100km in some sections. Mixed conditions (touring and hard driving, but no urban commuting) saw 8.5L/100km show on the car’s trip computer, which feels wholly reasonable for the day of driving we covered.

The Golf GTI specifies 95-octane unleaded as a minimum, and has a decent-sized 50-litre tank, meaning that the type of driving we covered and the consumption recorded would get you almost 590km between fills.

Volkswagen has always done something fairly remarkable with the Golf GTI, balancing the connected driving dynamics enthusiast drivers demand, with a level of comfort and refinement that allows it to seamlessly fit into daily life.

With this latest update, the package is tweaked rather than completely overhauled, because Volkswagen already has a competent, sharp-handling, and engaging hot hatch on its hands. The more potent 195kW tune for the EA888 engine brings added punch, but doesn’t tip the GTI over the edge.

If you’re after two cars in one, this could be it. Around town, the GTI is fairly quiet, smooth over most surfaces, and refined enough to feel like a prestige car. It’s not until you decide to flex its muscle that you unlock what this car is capable of.

The GTI comes with adaptive suspension, progressive-rate steering, an electronically actuated mechanical-locking front differential, and its own distinct chassis tune to help it feel planted and solid.

Controls have a very deliberate weighting. The steering has some heft to it to ensure high-speed stability is unshakeable, but as soon as you tip into a corner, you can notice the immediacy and feel the feedback from the front axle.

Volkswagen Australia selected challenging roads in Victoria’s High Country for the launch drive, and at no point did the Golf feel like it was running out of potential. The brakes are strong enough to withstand repeated hard use, and the locking front differential makes it incredibly easy for the driver to keep front axle traction right ahead of the breakaway limit.

Eco, Comfort and Sport drive modes are available, and for most drivers Comfort and Sport will do all the work, but an Individual mode lets you mix and match settings for suspension, steering, cruise-control responsiveness, transmission and throttle response, and even inside and outside noise via the speakers or exhaust. Ultimately, 15 steps of suspension feels like too many, where five would probably suffice, but Volkswagen is showing off a little here here by handing that control over to drivers to decide for themselves how they want their car to feel.

In Comfort mode, the ride is mostly pliant, but sudden surface changes and bigger hits still thump their way into the cabin. In Sport mode you feel a lot more of what the road surface has to offer, but the car manages to keep a connected feel without bouncing or feeling harsh.

The 195kW engine tune drops the claimed 0–100km/h time down to 5.9 seconds, from 6.3 seconds previously. It’s a brisk step up in performance, but not enough to overwhelm the front axle’s composure. Instead, it takes the GTI from feeling like a warm hatch back to something with real hot hatch enthusiasm.

The picture isn’t entirely perfect, though. Revisions to the exhaust give it a little bit of pop and crackle, but it’s subtle and harder to induce than in the Mk6 and Mk7 GTI, leaving you wanting more.

Tyre noise on the open road is also a bit louder than ideal. While it’s not a problem for drivers on an apex-hunting mission, once the road returns to commuter spec, the noticeable roar from the road surface can be annoying for hours at a time behind the wheel.

The 2025 Volkswagen Golf GTI is one of the few cars that’s very easy to recommend to almost anyone without needing to qualify what they’re looking for from the experience first.

You can own a GTI without leaving the urban confines and still enjoy your time behind the wheel. By far, though, the GTI is best enjoyed on fast-paced, tightly wound corners where it shows its potential at every press on the accelerator and every time you swing the wheel from side to side.

While there is no shortage of hot hatches available, some are much harder-edged, others are less plush on the inside, and some are simply too uncompromising to do what the Golf does. From hammering around weekend track days to pulling up to client lunches during the week, the Golf GTI never feels out of place, nor out of its depth.

Kez Casey migrated from behind spare parts counters to writing about cars over ten years ago. Raised by a family of automotive workers, Kez grew up in workshops and panel shops before making the switch to reviews and road tests for The Motor Report, Drive and CarAdvice.

Read more about Kez Casey