This Used Edition 30 Is An Anniversary VW Golf GTI That Won’t Cost The Earth

Just around the corner from CT headquarters is a VW Golf GTI Edition 30. I admire it each time I go past it: those multi-spoke 18-inch wheels look brilliant, and I like the lower plastic bits of the body being colour-coded. The golf ball-style gear knob is a nice touch, and of course, there’s the knowledge that it’s packing an extra 30bhp under the bonnet. This brought the total to 227bhp, dropping the 0-62mph time from 7.2 to 6.8 seconds.

All of this makes me feel like a bit of a moron for buying only a regular MkV Golf GTI last year, instead of one of these. Or an R32.

I hadn’t thought about it much lately, until VW went and released its latest GTI anniversary special, the Clubsport. Since not many of us have the ability to stump up the expected £27-28,000 price tag for this 286bhp birthday celebration, perhaps now’s the ideal time to be looking at used Edition 30s.

Given that you’re looking at around £20,000 to snare the Clubsport’s predecessor, the Edition 35, the older Edition 30 is a much better bet if you’re looking for a more affordable route into anniversary Golf GTIs. Prices start at about £6000, but it is worth exercising a little patience when looking: with just 1500 originally coming to the UK, there are never many on sale.

After a quick look through the classifieds, we found this manual 2008 example, yours for a very reasonable £7,900 and with 98,000 miles on the clock.

Tempted?