It’s by no means fast, but if it lives up to the promise, the Up GTI should be just under a tonne of fun.

The Volkswagen Up GTI has only been released as a concept so far, but Volkswagen says it will be “launched into the market in early 2018”.

With four more kilowatts than the original MKI GTI, VW says it intends to pay homage to the original GTI with the new Up.

To do this, they included it in the promotional video.

2018 VW Up GTI and VW Golf Mk1 GTI

“The new Up GTI continues the creed of the lightweight and no-frills sports car with a compact format – from outside and inside similar in size to the original GTI.”

85kW and 200Nm of torque in a 997kg car might not sound impressive to most, but consider that a modern MX-5 has only 11kW more, weighs 12kg more, but packs 50 fewer newtonmetres.

2018 Volkswagen Up GTI

But the greatest appeal of the Up GTI should be its price. With the original VW Up costing around $14K to $15K depending on the number of doors, we expect you’d only need to drop a few more thousand on that to bag an Up GTI.

2018 Volkswagen Up Interior

It sounds like a good addition to MOTOR’s annual Bang For Your Bucks…