Sector: Lower medium Price: £25,285–£27,355 Fuel: 60.1–67.3mpg CO2: 109–122g/km

Can you think of many more complete user-chooser cars than the Golf GTD? Efficient, practical and low on tax, yet packed with kerbside appeal and great fun to drive, it strikes a brilliant compromise between commuter workhorse and entertaining weekend car.

The diesel hot hatch may have become a more common, more appealing, proposition in recent years, but Volkswagen has had three decades to perfect its offering. Only five years separated the arrival of the GTI and GTD badges in the UK with the Mk1 Golf, and it’s since grown from an economy-focussed model with a few sports bolt-ons to be a far more convincing performance car.

So much so, that in the last generation Golf, the GTD accounted for almost 6% of all UK volume and, even in its final year on sale, this single trim was only 500 units adrift from the entire Jetta range.

At 184bhp, the GTD is still 36bhp behind the newest GTI but what it lacks in power it more than makes up for in torque. Peak output of 280lb.ft is available from 1,75rpm and there’s almost no point in the rev range where the engine doesn’t pick up with the urgency of a far more powerful car.

Better still, the newest of Volkswagen’s 2.0-litre TDI engines are barely noisier than the direct injection petrols found in the GTI. There’s a tiny amount of diesel clatter with the window open, but in most situations it’ll leave you checking the inside of the fuel flap to see what nozzle to pick up. With a sound actuator planned for the options list – which will pipe a gruff petrol-like exhaust noise into the cabin, there’s very little to give away that this isn’t the full-fat GTI.

The same is also true outside. As with previous versions, the GTD looks almost identical to the GTI save for a few red pinstripes and stitches, all of which are reduced to monochrome for the diesel. Honeycomb grilles, large part-polished wheels and a twin exhaust separate it from the basic Golfs on the outside, while grey tartan-trimmed sports seats and a flat-bottomed GTD-branded steering wheel lift the interior.

It’s an accessible car, too. Fuel economy of 67.3mpg with CO2 emissions of 109g/km for manual versions means it’s 13% more efficient than its predecessor. Around a third will get the DSG gearbox and resulting drop in fuel economy to 60.1mpg with 122g/km CO2 emissions for the five-door – both of which are comparable figures to the 62.8mpg, 119g/km Golf Bluemotion launched in 2007. That’s a remarkable advance in performance-per-pound over just two generations.

Meanwhile, lower insurance groups than its predecessor and residuals between 47% and 49% (with the five-door manual at the top of the desirability list) should keep running costs down for the 60% of GTDs expected to sell to fleets.

So the GTD remains a benchmark for the hot diesel hatchback, offering almost all of the plus points of the GTI but with much lower running costs than its petrol-powered counterpart. A well-rounded option which should be a popular part of any choice list.

Verdict: 

Private buyers may baulk at paying almost as much for the GTD as the GTI, but for fleets the diesel makes perfect sense. Most of the GTI perks, for a lot less outlay.