So does the new GTI manage to live up to its famous relatives? I think that if I'm totally honest, the answer has to be no. The original was truly

(Photo: Kevin ''Crash'' Corrigan)

something special; it was a raw, bare boned street rocket and justly deserved to be called a "hot hatch". If I had been asked to write about that vehicle, I would have used words like screamer and addictive, I doubt if I'd have called it civilized. Like a few people that I know, as the years went by, the pounds were piled on and this has had an adverse effect on the car. At the same time, other manufacturers have been improving the performance of their vehicles to the point where Volkswagen's current version is no longer the ground breaking vehicle it once was.

Yes, the new GTI is an extremely nice car to drive and it would be a fun car to own but for anyone old enough to remember the original it might be a

(Photo: Kevin ''Crash'' Corrigan)

little disappointing. It puts me in mind of an aging singer. Yes, she still holds a spot somewhere in your heart and you'd still pay good money to see her, but somehow as the years passed by, she lost a little bit of her original sex appeal and soul.

On the other hand, this trip down memory lane had me sorting through some old photo albums. After seeing myself standing outside school in my 6 inch high platform shoes, I think that the 70's are best left in the past. Yes, maybe the GTI has just grown up and found what some of us were missing back then, "Class and refinement".