For those of you unfamiliar with the GTD, it is quite literally a diesel version of the GTI. VW has recently been gauging potential demand for the car in the US, and has just announced, at the Geneva Motor Show, that the GTD will indeed make it to US shores.

You can see the tested specs in the video below, but in a nutshell the GTD will handle the same as a GTI, while trading a little straight line speed for around 30% better fuel economy. Going by EPA numbers for the GTI, that means MPG in the neighborhood of 31 city and 43 mpg highway, with an average around 37mpg… in theory at least. I don’t know about any of you, but I would definitely be willing to make that compromise, especially considering that the handling would still be phenomenal. The GTD isn’t exactly slow either, with 170hp and 258 ft/lbs of torque. It will lag a little from a GTI, but passing and merging will still be easy for it.

I do have a car purchase coming up in the next few months, and this GTD looks mighty appealing. Fun, economical, and supposedly pretty comfortable, what’s not to love? No word exactly on when it will hit showrooms, but I can say that I will probably wait until GTD pricing is announced before I make a decision. If VW is smart, they will price it to start around $22-23k in an effort to steal sales from Ford’s Fiesta ST, Chevy’s Sonic RS, and Hyundai’s Veloster Turbo. To anyone else who is starting to look around, it may be worth waiting out.

Motor Trend recently got their hands on a GTD, and they did well to show the car’s appeal.