Review of the year - April 09

Rain is the bane of a road tester’s life. Photographers start to moan, cars get dirty within moments of hitting the road and traffic speeds usually plummet. Yet this year, April’s showers failed to materialise.

Glorious sunshine greeted our examination of the new Porsche Cayman at the start of the month, and it continued to the end, when we put four seven-seater MPVs through their paces in Issue 1,060. In between, we had driven all sorts from the Vauxhall Insignia and Ford Mondeo estates to the Citroen C3 Picasso and
its supermini-MPV rivals.

Two of the team also managed to strike a couple of cars off their ‘must-drive’ lists in the spring. At the launch of the VW Golf GTI, they got the chance to drive a MkI version.

The original hot hatch had been shipped to the venue from the firm’s museum – and lived up to expectations. Old cars often struggle to match up to the hype surrounding them, but on this occasion, the pristine Golf didn’t disappoint – although it did demonstrate just how much brake technology has improved.

VW played a leading role this month. Not only was its Passat BlueMotion one of the stars of our stop-start test, the hot R36 estate version also featured in a duel with the latest Audi A4 Avant. The VWs had mixed fortunes – but neither could hope to eclipse the arrival of the latest-generation Golf GTI.

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Click any of the links below to catch up with all the rest of the year's most exciting stories.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Verdict

Tester's notes
As a lifelong fan of the Volkswagen Golf GTI, I was a happy man when the invite to attend the launch of the latest MkVI version landed on my desk – even more so when we foundout VW was taking an original MkI to the event.

It gave us the idea of testing the new car beside the hot hatch that startedit all – but the reality proved to be very different.

With a solitary MkI available, we knew we would have to fight off an army of journalists who all wanted to do the same thing. So, how did we do it?

Well, in time-honoured fashion, we simply got up before everybody else! After an exceedingly early alarm call, we managed to bag the MkI’s keys, and it all seemed worthwhile.

Following fellow road tester James Disdale as he drove the new GTI up the twisty mountain roads outside St Tropez has to be one of the highlights of 2009 for me.

And in a year when I’ve driven the latest Porsche 911 GT3, a classic Jaguar D-Type and virtually everything in between, the MkI (below) still stands out as something special.

Owen Mildenhall
Senior road tester