VW up! GTI drag races VW Golf GTI Mk2

up! gti vs golf gti mk2

A very, very slow drag race

Ever since it launched, the Volkswagen up! GTI has been seen by many as the spiritual successor of the original Golf GTI. Is this a good enough reason to summon a drag race, then? Well, of course.

Mat Watson of carwow wanted to see how the more modern up! GTI fares against its ancestors, so he brought a VW Golf GTI Mk2 to the fight.

We know, we know, a duel between the up! GTI and the Golf GTI Mk1 would have been a more emotional affair, but the up! GTI and the Golf GTI Mk2 share similar horsepower values (roughly 115 hp each) which makes this duel pretty logical.

Now, there’ve been critics arguing that the up! GTI is not exactly what you’d call a hot hatch, especially if we look at what European customers can get under €20,000. Truth be told, the up! GTI is not the fastest, nor the most powerful and definitely not the cheapest of the bunch.

However, as we’ve seen on different occasions – most of them nicely illustrated by the Mazda MX-5 – you don’t need a full stable of horsepower to have fun.

That aside, we’ll leave you in the company of the video below, which will tell you how this family feud ends up.

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