2018 Volkswagen up! GTI Revealed

The up! is a small, funky and cool car from Volkswagen. So cool, in fact, that it has an exclamation mark in its name! It's available in 3- and 5-door guises in a variety of flavours with equally cool names like up! beats, e-up!, cross up! and load up!. The latest to join is the first ever up! GTI that keeps things light, compact and simple; just like Volkswagen's first-ever GTI launched in 1976.

When it turned 40, select journos were handed the keys to sample the up! GTI, in its concept form, on the track. But now that it's production-ready, VW decided to give us a glimpse of what it'll look like when it rolls out of the factory.

The up! is a compact car, about as long as the Chevrolet Beat and comes with a 1.0-litre 3-cylinder engine. The naturally-aspirated version makes 60PS or 75PS, while the turbocharged powerplant makes 90PS or 102PS. The latest to join the lineup and the one that'll do duty in the up! GTI makes 115PS and 200Nm, thanks to a high-pressure turbocharger. It comes exclusively paired to a 6-speed manual transmission for a top speed of 197kmph.

Its sub-tonne kerb weight, axles set as far apart as possible lend it the go-kart dynamics and the result is a 0-100kmph acceleration figure of 8.8 seconds. All highly sought after characteristics among hot hatch buyers. To put things into perspective, the first Golf GTI from the 70’s had 110PS and took nine seconds to reach triple-digit speeds. The first one was also pretty light at just 810kg and met all the safety requirements of the era.

At launch, the up! GTI will be available in five shades: Tornado Red, Pure White, Dark Silver, Black Pearl, and Costa Azul. In the European markets, it'll compete against the Suzuki Swift Sport with a 1.0-litre Boosterjet engine and the Renault Twingo GT 900cc turbocharged motor. Other cars in the carmaker's portfolio wearing the GTI moniker are the Polo GTI and the Golf GTI. Out of the two, the Polo GTI is sold in India as Volkswagen GTI for a price tag of Rs 26.09 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).