VW To Drop GTX Badge, Make GTI And R EVs Instead

It’s only three years since VW resurrected its GTX badge to mark out the performance versions of its ID electric models, but the automaker is already planning to drop the name and return to its roots.

The next generation of sporty electric VWs will wear the same GTI and R badges that have been used for decades on the marque’s petrol-engined cars, the CEO says.

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“GTX is the performance brand of the MEB [platform], but we’ll work our way back to GTI and R in the next products going forward,” Thomas Schäfer told Autocar.

VW previously used the GTX badge in the 1980s on models like the Scirocco coupe and dusted it down for 2021’s bi-motor ID.4 GTX. The lineup was expanded to include the ID.5 GTX and in the last six months alone we’ve been introduced to the ID.Buzz GTX, ID.7 GTX and ID.3 GTX.

The rear-wheel drive ID.3 GTX is the only one of those cars not to use a bi-motor setup, and Schafer admitted to reporters that applying the GTI badge to future EVs might not sit with the badge’s existing narrative.

“The question is: how do we position GTI?”, Schafer said. “GTI is traditionally performance and front-wheel drive.”

That shouldn’t be a problem in the case of the 2029 Golf GTI, previewed by last year’s front-wheel drive ID.GTI concept, an evolution of the earlier ID.2all show car. But it might be an issue in the case of bigger electric cars that would need two motors to give them enough zip to justify wearing a GTI badge.

One thing we can be sure of is that R-branded EVs will stick with all-wheel drive and that R will become an electric-only brand by the end of this decade. Schafer also said the current GTX models won’t be rebranded during their lifetime.