The Volkswagen Golf GTD is hardly short of torque in standard form (350Nm or 258lb.ft) but ABT have managed to massage the ECU to dish up an impressive 390Nm.

ABT Volkswagen Golf VI GTD

With torque like the the ABT Golf GTD offers effortless overtaking with just a brush of the accelerator, with the optional DSG gearbox making easy work of the gear changes. It’s not just torque that’s increased as power goes up from 170bhp to 190bhp. As a result the 0-62mph time drops to 7.1 seconds and the top speed increases to 144mph. Not bad for a diesel hatchback, eh?

The best bit is that the upgrade barely affects the fuel economy of the GTD, so you get the benefit of even more performance and yet keep the reduced fuel bills – provided you’re not using that extra grunt all of the time :).

As well as the new ECU, ABT offer a new set of suspension springs to improve the handling of the GTD and reign in the nose-heavy understeer of the standard setup.

There is also a full set of cosmetic upgrades that can be fitted to any Golf VI including alloy wheels, front spoiler, front grille (featuring the ABT logo), side skirts, rear spoiler, rear apron and 4-pipe exhaust.