2012 Volkswagen GTI

The Volkswagen Golf Mk6 reached the North American market for the 2010 model year and by 2012 the iron-block 2.0L turbocharged four cylinder under the hood of the GTI variant was a little long in the tooth and, at 200 horsepower, was a looking a bit weak compared to some of its hot hatch rivals from Ford and Mazda.

Still, it was bolted into a willing chassis and backed with either a six-speed manual or DSG gear changer, and two hundred ponies can gallop pretty good if they only have to haul a little over three thousand pounds of VW. The sticky rubber on the 18" wheels of this Black Pearl Metallic example make for sure-footed handling.

When Road & Track tested a three-door with the manual gearbox, they recorded a 6.4 second zero to sixty sprint and a quarter in fifteen flat. Those would have been V-8 pony car acceleration numbers not too many years before.

Their test car came with a $24,765 as-tested price, the equivalent of roughly $34,400 in today's money.

This one was photographed with a Nikon D200 and an 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR II zoom lens in August of 2020.