VW GTI Crossovers Aren't Going To Be A Thing

Performance crossovers are becoming more and more of a big deal for manufacturers. Mercedes seems to bring out a new one every other week, and over at Jaguar, it looks like we’ll see a hot F-Pace SVR long before a similarly pokey XF ever happens - if indeed it happens at all.

At VW however, things seem to be a tad more restrained with Autocar reporting that VW chairman Dr Herbert Diess has quashed speculation surrounding an expanding GTI range. “I think with the three we have now, we are set,” he said, adding, “GTI for us is ‘the’ hot hatch: a sporty car, classless, with potential for everyday use and accessible for many. It should be this car – a hot hatch.

So, that means no Tiguan GTI, nor a GTI version of the incoming T-Roc. The same goes for the Touran and Sharan - not that we were expecting cooking versions of the pair.

The R brand may yet grow, though, with Diess hinting that a T-Roc R could happen at some point. Also, the rise of hybrids in the VW range means that more GTE models will almost certainly appear in the next few years.