Volkswagen has gave its legendary hot-hatch, the Golf GTI, a 50th-anniversary gift so special, so ludicrously fast for the American market that it must be recognized for the masterpiece that it is. The new Golf GTI Edition 50 is a car engineered to humiliate its predecessors and, incidentally, make every other version of the GTI look painfully affordable.
This is the fastest series-production Volkswagen to ever lap the notorious Nürburgring, clocking a blistering 7:46.13. That time alone is a testament to the fact that the Edition 50 is more than just a celebratory badge reel, it’s a serious performance machine. Its 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine is dialed up to a ridiculous 320 HP and 400 Nm of torque, an absurd amount of power to be channeled exclusively through the front wheels.
Now for the gut-punch, the price. The GTI Edition 50 starts at €54,540 in Germany. For those keeping score at home, that converts to roughly $63,593 USD. Let that sink in. For comparison, the far more powerful, all-wheel-drive Golf R starts at a meager $47,100 in the States, and even the German-spec Golf R is only marginally more expensive. Volkswagen is effectively asking European customers to pay a premium for less driven wheels, making this the most expensive GTI ever sold.
This pricing strategy, of course, ensures that the Edition 50 will remain a forbidden fruit in the US, where it would compete too closely to the established Golf R in terms of value proposition.
For those Europeans wealthy enough to embrace the absurdity, optional add-ons like the GTI Performance package, which includes lightweight Akrapovic titanium exhaust, forged 19-inch wheels, and semi-slick Bridgestone tires, can further shed weight and inflate the final price. This special edition, available in suitably aggressive colors like Pure White and Tornado Red, is loaded with standard luxury features like matrix LED headlights and dynamic chassis control (DCC).
Volkswagen built its fastest-ever front-wheel-drive hero, only to price it so high it validates the skepticism of everyone who just bought the cheaper all-wheel-drive Golf R.
