For a company whose GTI badge is legendary, the absence of the Polo GTI must have been eating the folks at Volkswagen Group Australia…but not any more as the compact GTI arrived in Sydney ahead of local sale late this year.

As we knew, the latest Polo GTI is a technical masterpiece, which shows you can have performance, fuel economy, and up-market features in a sharply priced compact hatchback. Although Volkswagen didn’t reveal prices at the Motor Show, our mail is a sub-$30,000 RRP.

The latest GTI runs Volkswagen’s ‘twincharged’ (supercharged and turbocharged) 132kW, 1.4-litre engine, driving through a seven-speed DSG transmission. There’s a transverse differential lock (XDL) to help transmit that performance to the front wheels.

Naturally, given the talents of the engineers at Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg, Germany head office, this high performance (zero to 100 km/h in 6.9 seconds) pocket rocket is quite kind to the planet with average fuel consumption of 6.1/100kms and C02 emissions of only 142g/km.

The new Polo GTI runs on 17-inch alloy wheels and includes just about every safety aid including ESP and six airbags.