Road and Driver

Evolution has treated this icon well.

BY JENS MEINERS

We don’t think we’re sucking up too much if we state that Volkswagen’s GTI is the only true icon among compact hatchbacks. It’s been around for 33 years now, and every generation of the Golf has worn the GTI moniker since it first debuted in 1976 as an unlikely engineering project.

The GTI began life as a segment-buster. When it was launched, it was intended to entice cool and trendy urban types who wanted to lay waste to far bigger, far more traditional coupes and family sedans. The GTI did just that, and it was a sensation. The car wasn’t cheap, but it was well-executed and an absolute blast to drive. Whether you lived in Paris, Hamburg, or Milan, you had to have a black GTI. The last-generation GTI was a favorite in our offices, winning three straight 10Best Cars awards.

Be vewwy, vewwy quiet—VW’s hunting rabbits.

BY JENS MEINERS

Three years ago, Volkswagen of America—under the guidance of Kerri Martin, then the “director of brand innovation,” and then-advertising darling Crispin Porter + Bogusky—ditched the globally successful Golf nameplate and renamed the popular hatchback the Rabbit in the North American market, reviving the name under which the first-generation Golf was produced in Westmoreland, Pennsylvania in the 1970s and ‘80s. And it was as the Rabbit that the perky, fun-to-drive car was “Americanized” and allowed to deteriorate into a low-quality, softened caricature of the German-built original. When its successor arrived, it was rechristened the Golf to erase memories of the Rabbit.

Keep Reading: Scoop! Volkswagen Kills Rabbit Nameplate - Car News