My quest to document all the Volkswagen Polo GTIs in India

While I have tracked 75% of the total cars, I still have 50 more cars to go. Would love to see any cars that I may have missed out on.

BHPian omar recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

GTI’s have always fascinated me. Not the car itself. But the fact that a company like VW, took a bold step to bring such a car to India. At a time when most hatches were on sale for less than 10 lakh rupees, they took the decision to bring such a car to our country.

For an enthusiast, this is a rare move by a company where the bottom line was not the only motivating factor. It was something else. Rarely have we enthusiasts been heard, and a competent performance oriented international car been launched in our country.

We can’t complain much though. As it is one thing to demand a product to be launched, it is another to put your money where your mouth is. Most of the products are not launched due to correctly projected lack of demand (at the premium price point). This is evident from the GTI launch itself, so as with the VRS245 launch. Anything which was launched at too much of a premium failed to sell out.

However, one thing I have learnt is, if you hit the sweet spot, the cars will sell. This was evident when the cars literally flew off the shelves when the price of the GTI was reduced. This was also the case when the price of the VRS245 was reduced. With the growing income, there definitely is a market for such cars. Manufacturers need to find that at the planning stage and make an informed launch. (example the VRS230 launch). With the market and money moving towards SUV’s and EV’s, manufacturers are unfortunately more risk averse now.

What they fail to understand is the impact a successful performance car (from a mass market manufacturer) can have as a halo product. The GT/ GTI, VRS 230/245 and Abarth have built a community of enthusiasts and a car movement, which will be here for a long time. This simply cannot be quantified based on short term profitability assessments. These relatively affordable halo products have immense scope of building and maintaining a brand image. Most manufacturers do not realise this, when they have a short term outlook on profitability. I sincerely hope we have more international performance oriented cars being launched by VW, Skoda, Hyundai and Honda, at a competent price. I am sure they will do well.

Being an owner of the GTI, I always wanted to document all the cars in the country. The official count by VW initially was 99 cars sold. However, the rumored count is 200 cars. My aim is to track each one of them. So far I have been able to track 150 cars. This is based on the sources below:

• Details shared by Individual owners of their cars
• Details shared by Car spotters/ super car pages for cars in their city or state.
• Details posted on Social media, which is publicly available
• The registration numbers have been checked to confirm their validity and correctness.
• The registration numbers will not be disclosed individually in the analysis, to maintain privacy. The information will only be aggregated.

I am sharing some insights on the cars based on the data with me:

1. Cars In the Country by State:

• We have 151 cars that I have been able to track. They are split as per the current state of registration.
• The most cars in the country, I have are in Kerala. With 42 out of the 151 in the state. There are rumored to be 60 sold in the state. So I have a long way to go!
• Kochi is the single city with the highest number of cars in the country.

2. Cars Split by Colour:

• Four colours were originally sold. Red, White, Black and Silver.
• The list is based on the original colour, as when sold.
• Red is the most common colour, and for a reason. It looks absolutely amazing, and the best in my opinion.
• Silver is the rarest colour.
• Some cars have their colours changed at the RTO, or the colour not updated in RTO. These have been recorded as unkown or the current colour.

Take your pick:

Red GTI:

White GTI:

Black GTI:

Silver GTI:

3. Sales Trend(based on registration dates):

• Many of you may know the GTI was launched at the end of 2016. It was literally a sales dud. VW eventually reduced the prices, and the car took off, as it should!
• The car was launched in November 2016 for 25.99 lakhs. Link to the team bhp article: https://www.team-bhp.com/news/volksw...d-rs-2599-lakh
• It had a price reduction in mid 2017. After which sales spiked. Link to team bhp article: https://www.team-bhp.com/news/scoop-...w-rs-1999-lakh
• It had a further reduction in Jan 2018, after which we saw another jump. The car was sold out around May/ June 2018 in most places.
• Any registrations after that can be considered as a one off, where owners may not have registered their cars after purchase initially, but later did.

4. Number of Owners: Percentage Breakup

• Along with being a hot hatch, the car is also a hot seller in the used car market. Since it is a rare car, it is always in demand to the right buyer. Due to this, it has not lost much value in the pre owned market. The fact that the car was discontinued, and the Polo was discontinued as well eventually, has made sure the car holds its value well.
• 29% of the cars have changed hands at least once. (2nd Owner).
• 17% of the cars have changed hands at least twice. (3rd Owner)
• There are many cases where the cars have not been transferred officially, but have changed hands, in many cases multiple times. Hence the real world count is much higher. However, I have not considered these, as they are not official numbers.

While I have tracked 75% of the total cars, I still have 50 more cars to go. Would love to see any cars that I may have missed out on. Feel free to PM or post on this thread if you own or have spotted a GTI!

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.