When an assault with battery is as ballistic as the strongest-brew Golf GTI, don’t say you’re at least not intrigued.

SIGNATURE high backed sports seats in signature tartan, signature fat square-bottomed steering wheel with a stitched 12 o’clock marker in red.

All that’s missing from this next into production Volkswagen hot hatch delivering with the hallowed GTI badge is the equally revered 2.0-litre turbo petrol.

Because? It doesn’t have an engine, but an electric motor.

Which isn’t under the bonnet, but tucked under the rear seats. And is the most powerful in five decades of GTI history.

So what manner of Golf is this?

Erm … none. What’s been unveiled at last is the uber edition of one of the ID cars VW New Zealand had intended to sign up for, but so far never has: The ID.3. Maybe this version will change their minds.

So, an ID.3 GTI is …. a statement of intent. Not least because in previous corporate thinking, the sporty electrics were labelled GTX.

So is it a proper GTi? It would seem to meet requirement insofar as on paper credentials go.

The ID.3 GTI gets the latest AP550 electric motor driving the rear wheels developing 243kW and 545Nm of torque.

That’s sufficient for a 0-100kmh time of 5.6 seconds, which is only fractions of a second slower than the ultimate petrol-powered Golf GTI, the Edition 50.

Thanks to a 79kWh battery, the ID.3 GTI quotes a range of 601km on a full charge. It will charge quickly too, at up to 183kW on DC power, allowing a 10 to 80 percent top-up in 28 minutes.

Styling distinctions over the regular ID.3, now called ID.3 Neo, include ultra-slim headlights that are linked by an ‘IQ.Light’ panel, which itself gets the classic mark of the VW GTI just above it — a slim red stripe.

There are also neat vertical LED running lights in the lower bumper, honeycomb grilles, and a chunky rear roof spoiler and under-bumper diffuser panel. And GTI badges.

The wheels are 20-inch alloy rims called ‘Worthersee’ in Volkswagen’s catalogue, a nod to the massive celebration of high-performance VWs staged annually in the Austrian town of the same name.

Tornado Red here has heritage in the original Mk1 Golf GTI. It also delivers in Moonstone Grey solid, Scale Silver metallic, Grenadilla Black metallic or Glacier White metallic.

With this model, pressing the GTI button on the lower section of the steering wheel activates a specific driving mode. This is on top of the existing Eco, Comfort, Sport and Individual modes.

VW says it’s this car’s ‘special sauce’, tweaking the steering, accelerator response, DCC adaptive suspension dampers, and even the ambient lighting for a maximally sporty experience. The digital dash also switches to a specific GTI mode, and there’s a simulated combustion engine noise too.