“GTI” was a magic abbreviation right from the start. After all, it marked the raciest variant of each of the Golfs, which had succeeded the Beetle. “When the first Golf GTI was launched in 1976, it hit us like a freight train,” says Hans-Jürgen Abt and adds: “We had seen the technology one year before, in the Audi 80 GLE, but only the GTI made tuning really popular,” says the CEO of the renowned enhancer now turning 120 years old. And the GTI has been a key factor in ABT’s success for decades.
The three letters stand for Grand Tourisme Injection, but the initialism has always led a life of its own: it stands for a sporty Golf. In the beginning, Bosch’s K-Jetronic got it rated 110 hp (81 kW). “That was a lot, for the Golf weighed next to nothing,” says Hans-Jürgen Abt. The Bavarians enhanced it to 135 PS (99 kW) first; later, there was more. In the US, where the GTI was called “Rabbit”, they even drove races and scored.
What then came has made automotive history, also by ABT Sportsline, which has left its mark on each and every GTI generation. These compact performers were always state-of-the-art and utterly dependable. So the latest, seventh, GTI generation also gets some extra ABT POWER. “Yes, we do indeed add 75 hp (55 KW) to the 2l-TFSI GTI Clubsport’s power, 25 hp (18 kW) more than the first production Golf with the smallest engine had to begin with,“ says a smiling Hans-Jürgen Abt.
Translated into numbers, this extra fun reads thus: 340 hp / 250 kW instead of 265 hp / 195 kW. And the designers have also again come up with a body kit, another ABT GTI tradition. This year, it consists of a striking front skirt, front grille, head light covers, side skirts, a rear skirt insert, tailgate add on and mirror caps plus the ABT 4-pipe exhaust, sport-type anti-roll bars and coilovers. Deceleration is perfected by an optional front axle sport-type braking system with its six-piston callipers, steel flex brake lines and 370 x 35 mm brake discs. It goes without saying that alloy wheels are available too: 18, 19 or 20’’ CR, DR, ER-C and FR, to be precise, which come with optional high-performance tires. For the GTI is, and forever will be, the sport-type Golf. “We have always tried to individualise the production GTI as best as we can, and we will continue to do so with the Golf GTI VIII,“ says Hans-Jürgen Abt. “The GTI is part of us.“
