Volkswagen isn’t planning on pulling the covers off the Mk8.5 Golf until the end of this month, but to tide us over it’s dropped a full set of “official” spy shots showing the facelifted hatch in high definition.
The suite of images of a 2025 Golf GTI was supposed to illustrate the new ChatGPT infotainment tech VW is unveiling at CES in Las Vegas this week, and which will be incorporated into some Volkswagen cars later this year. But they also give us a look at what we can expect from the final combustion-engined Golf when it lands in showrooms later in 2024, and prove that VW has listened to criticism of the current Mk8’s interior layout.
Interior images show the Golf switches from an infotainment system that’s relatively small and embedded into the upper dashboard, to a larger tablet-style display as seen on other recent VW cars like the ID.7, revised ID.4, and new Euro-market Passat and Tiguan.
Related: Everything We Know About The Last ICE Powered Golf, The 2025 Mk8.5
Hopefully, the revised display with its more logical interface and more user-friendly heater controls (that can actually be seen in the dark) will answer complaints about the current setup, and the return of old-fashioned physical buttons on the steering wheel is sure to please disgruntled VW fans. The Mk8 Golf adopted touch-sensitive steering wheel buttons that were far too easy to accidentally activate by brushing your hand against them during regular driving.
Moving to the exterior, we can see that VW has treated the Golf to a typically minor makeover consisting of new lights and bumpers, and little else. The front bumpers now feature little hockey-stick-shaped body-color elements that reach diagonally upwards from the bottom corner of each grille and make the Golf look like a crab that’s shovelling mini sea critters into its hungry mouth.
The rear spoiler looks like the one fitted to the Euro-market Clubsport and the wheels appear to be the 19-inch Estoril rims that come optional on lower-rung GTIs and were fitted as standard to North America’s 380. One thing the 380 isn’t donating is its manual-shift transmission. Sadly, the stick-shift option has already been withdrawn in Europe and won’t be available on U.S. cars after the 2024 model year.
VW hasn’t outlined what powertrain changes it’s making for the Mk8.5, but we’re expecting the GTI to stick with the tried and tested 2.0-liter turbo-four, most likely with a small bump over the 241 hp (245 PS) delivered by the current base car – perhaps matching the 261 hp (265 PS) of the 2.0-liter Tiguan.
