Volkswagen Polo GTI India launch being considered in limited numbers.
Volkswagen is considering the new Polo GTI for India launch via CBU route in limited volumes. The German carmaker has no plans to locally manufacture the 6th gen Polo in India. Polo fanboys who are dejected about the discontinuation of the 12 year old hatch have something to look forward to, albeit with loaded pockets!
Petrolheads will remember, Volkswagen launched the 5th gen Polo GTI 3-door hatch in 2017. It was a dream machine to drive! It had a 1.8-litre TSI turbo petrol under the hood producing 189 HP and 250 Nm of torque, mated to a 7-speed DSG. It was priced at Rs. 30.10 lakhs (on-road, Mumbai) and eventually the price was cut by Rs. 6 lakhs.
Now, the 6th generation Polo GTI will be introduced in a more practical 5-door avatar. It is based on the latest MQB A0 architecture and is powered by a 2.0-litre TSI petrol motor that makes 204 HP and 320 Nm of torque. Mated to a 7-speed DSG gearbox, it does 0-100 km/hr in 6.5 seconds.
Some of the features include 9.2-inch touchscreen, 10.25-inch Digital Cockpit Pro, Online Connectivity Unit (OCU), wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, leather sports steering wheel, 300 W (6-speaker) Beats sound system, etc.
The performance hatch gets sports chassis, upgraded brakes and comes with semi-automated driving function IQ.DRIVE Travel Assist as an option along with Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and Lane Assist.
VW offers 5 colour options with the GTI in the international market, we hope they offer all the colours in India too – Deep Black Pearl Effect, Smoke Grey Metallic, Kings Red Metallic, Pure White Uni and Reef Blue Metallic.
Of late, Volkswagen has made good use of the 2500-unit homologation-free rule for CBU imports with the T-Roc and Tiguan All-Space as all the units imported have sold out very quickly. If the Polo GTI is priced well, it will find a lot of takers in the country.