The last manual Volkswagen GTI has been built and sold, a company spokesperson confirmed to Motor1 on Tuesday. The lucky buyer, Jamie Orr, documented his buying experience on TikTok, giving us an up-close look at the car.
Instead of doing a big tribute to say goodbye to the very last manual-equipped GTI, Volkswagen decided to let the stick shift die quietly. The car in question, a black GTI 380, was allocated to a dealership in Missoula, Montana. It wasn’t a special-order deal, either. It just showed up on the truck to be added to the dealer’s inventory.
Orr, being a VW enthusiast, tracked the car down and drove 2,300 miles from his hometown in Pennsylvania to pick it up. Instead of driving it back home, he used a Volkswagen Atlas painted in a custom Harlequin livery, reminiscent of the multi-colored, special-edition Polo sold in 1995. We’re not sure we’ve seen anyone more into Volkswagens. Something tells us the very last manual GTI is going to a good home.
The GTI 380 seen here is the very last of a special edition launched in 2023 to wave goodbye to the manual transmission. It gets black seats, black mirror caps, and a black roof, along with plaid-pattern seat inserts—a design staple of the German hot hatch. Output from the EA888 turbocharged four-cylinder is unchanged, at 241 horsepower and 273 pound-feet of torque.
From now on, you’ll only be able to buy a GTI with a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. The same is true of the more powerful Golf R, which also lost its third pedal for the 2025 model year. Sorry, purists.
More on the Manual GTI
Manual GTI and Golf R Sales Spiked Right Before They Died
It’s Official, The 2025 Golf GTI And Golf R Won’t Have Manuals