You’ll be seeing a lot of the new Volkswagen Golf GTI in the coming weeks as the new advertising campaign has just started. You’ll almost certainly spot it on billboards and in magazines, or you may even see the following video on TV.

Volkswagen Golf GTI. Often copied. Never equalled.

Volkswagen Golf GTI. Often copied. Never equalled.

The theme is ‘Often copied. Never equalled.’ Wind the clock back almost forty years and it was the Mk1 Golf GTI that kicked off the whole ‘hot hatch’ genre, turning what was a tiny niche in the car market into a hugely popular sector. It’s a formula that has indeed been copied, many times over, by the Golf’s rivals.

Has the Golf GTI really never been equalled? Hot hatch fans of any decade since the 80s will certainly argue about that, particularly those in the Peugeot and Renault camps. In making that claim Volkswagen must have also forgotten about the Mk4 GTI. Some cars are best forgotten.

Anyway, here’s the new ad. Feel free to sing along with Frank Sinatra as he belts out ‘I did it my way’.

Interested in what was happening behind the scenes? If so you’ll enjoy the following video too: