Welcome to the new Golf GTI. Fine, welcome to a drawing of the new Golf GTI. And it’ll have to do, because this is all we’re getting until it’s revealed proper at next month’s Geneva Motor Show, where the GTI will share space on VW’s stand with the diesel-engined GTD. And a show hall with its close cousins, the Cupra Leon and Skoda Octavia vRS.

VW says the latest GTI will be a “pure, intelligent and superior high-tech sportscar for the digital age” and, like its predecessors, will be front-wheel drive and powered by a petrol engine. It will have tartan upholstery (good), a red stripe across its radiator grille (also good), as well as a techy interior loaded with screens (not so good).

Oh, and the option of a full-width LED light bar connecting the headlights, taking the total number of lights on the front of the new GTI to a whopping 13. The Nissan Juke can only aspire to such impressive levels of forward illumination.

STORY Tom Harrison