The Updated VW Golf GTI Clubsport Costs From £41,655

The more driver-focused version of the latest Golf GTI doesn’t cost as much as we feared

06 Aug 2024

The Mk8.5 VW Golf GTI Clubsport is one of the least surprising cars of 2024. With a facelift arriving for the ‘regular’ GTI and the rest of the Golf range earlier in the year, it was all but inevitable that this more driver focused version would reappear. What is a little surprising is the price: at £41,665, it’s a good couple of grand more than the old version, but it’s not quite as expensive as we feared.

Besides that new price, it gets a reworked front bumper and head- and taillights; and some new wheels, shared with the regular GTI, that it looks like VW sourced via a midnight raid on Alfa Romeo’s HQ. Other than that, it’s mostly as you were with the old version.

Mechanically, there are no dramatic changes either. The suspension setup of the base GTI carries over into Clubsport as before, and the once model-specific diff tuning on the Clubsport is now deployed on the regular car too. It still gets 20mm larger front brake discs over the base version, though.

In fact, the only real driving-focused change compared with the outgoing Clubsport is a tweak of the electronic steering setup’s software with input from former Bugatti test driver Sven Bohnhorst. Apparently, some influence has been drawn from the Chiron Pur Sport as a result – we’ll volunteer ourselves to try both cars back-to-back to find out for sure.

Really, the biggest differences come in the cabin. Like the rest of the Mk8.5 range, it gets a new 12.9-inch infotainment display with VW’s newest MIB4 software which is a marked improvement on the old one based on our use of it in other models.

It does mean touch-sensitive climate controls still (boo, hiss, etc.) but does bring physical buttons back to the steering wheel. In the year that is 2024, that’s genuinely quite exciting, and having tried it on the regular Golf, we can confirm it’s a huge improvement.