Bagaimana Volkswagen Golf GTI berikutnya akan tetap setia pada akarnya

Volkswagen is set to make the new Golf an electric vehicle, which will extend to the performance GTI and R variants.

The Golf GTI – turning 50 next year – has always been a front-wheel drive hatchback, a trait which will remain when the Mk9 electric version arrives.

Speaking to Auto Express, Volkswagen CEO Thomas Schäfer confirmed the GTI will remain front-wheel drive, while the hotter R stays as an all-wheel drive.

Despite the GTI not being the flagship of the range, the long-running icon is promised to be “a monster car”.

“At the end of the decade we will bring an electric Golf [GTI], and that will be a monster car,” Schäfer told Auto Express.

“I’m very happy with the progress. It’s cool. You can make it exciting, it has to be exciting, it has to be authentic. If we bring a GTI, it has to be a [true] GTI.”

While the ID.3 – Volkswagen’s current Golf-sized electric hatchback – is rear-wheel drive, the EV GTI will run on the carmaker’s upcoming Scalable Systems Platform (SSP), said to be far more technologically advanced than the current MEB underpinnings.

Though the GTI will lose its petrol engine, Schäfer quelled doubts about whether the Golf would lose its edge as an EV.

“Can you make an electric Golf exciting? Absolutely.”

Reports from fellow UK publication Autocar have claimed the Golf will continue to be offered with petrol power alongside the EV, though the unleaded-fuelled models will be heavily updated versions of the Mk8.5 currently on sale.