I just came back from viewing the pre-launch of the Golf GTI Mk7 at Veemer Old Klang Road. Heading there expecting to see the new car, frankly I was rather sceptical. One, was that I didn’t really like the rear design of the Golf Mk7 models. That meant the TSI, GTI and the upcoming Golf R. I feel as if the rear was disproportionate to the rest of the car. Of course, this was just my own taste and opinion. I am a big fan of the front design and the new DRL lights.
A few things I noticed with the new Golf GTI is that there is a side badge now in red with the words GTI written all over it. The designer has decided to use honey comb in all of its design! The usual front grill in honey comb design is a given but the bits inside the headlights are also styled in honey comb design. The interior plastic panels as well were in honey comb styling and thanks to Richard who pointed it out to me, even the wheel caps with the VW logo on it had a honey comb design.
Once you get through all of that honey comb design, I was welcomed by a very nice and modern interior. A new coloured multi function display with new graphics was impressive as well as the ability to set individual car modes (e.g. steering to sports, suspension to sports). The only downside I felt with the LCD display is that it was only 5.9″ in terms of size. I really did wish it came in a larger size as I usually like watching movies/TV series on it. The steering wheel is nice indeed, the buttons were responsive and the feeling of the leather was nice couple with the pedal shifters.
Other subtle changes are the LED fog lights, instead of a single light, now there are 3 lights arranged in a column which uses LED’s. A new addition to the Mk7 is the ability to lower the floor panel in the boot. Seemed a useful feature to get additional more space in the boot but I still think it would be extremely difficult to stuff a golf bag into the Golf (ironically).
The leather seats were as normal as the previous version, the difference you can view is the driver and passenger head rest design didn’t follow that of the Mk6 which I thought was unique and stood out. The current design on the Mk7 seemed standard. The accelerator pedal is also different now, it isn’t just a single piece (pivot point at the floor) but it sticks out from the top as with most other cars.
The launch event was nicely organized. There were plenty of finger food about as well as free flow of beer and iced tea. An emcee led the event together with a deejay to provide some tunes for the launch. They had a couple of models who acted as receptionists, taking photos with potential customers and guests as well as they in turn, going around and taking photos with an Instax camera. Managed to get a couple of my photos taken as well 🙂
I would like to give a big shout-out to Richie who gave me an invite for the launch. Wouldn’t have been able to see the new car so early on without the invite.
I can’t wait to give this car a test drive since someone I know did mention that this was one of the best FWD cars he has ever driven. Really excited about it! Will come back more with pictures and the test drive results once I get the opportunity. I do apologize for the somewhat poor quality of the photos in this post, tried taking better pictures with my iPhone 5 but it was a tough environment to shoot in 😉
