NOBODY through the ages has complained about a traditional American burger done well. That is neither fast-food dross, nor any high-end fois gras-topped indulgent variety, but just a juicy meat patty with lots of salad plucked from any Australian beachside suburb in … oh, maybe 1976.

There is not a hint of stars-and-stripes about the Volkswagen Golf GTI Original, but this limited -edition version of the iconic German hot hatchback does take a stripped-down, back-to-basics approach with the latest Mark 7.5 generation as homage to the – you guessed it – 1976 original.

With a pricing and door-count cut, navigation and keyless auto-entry dropped, and multi-mode suspension giving way to fixed damping all for less than $40,000 driveaway, there would appear to be no flabby excess here. The important ingredients of this Berger remain – 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder, manual transmission, 18-inch tyres, front-wheel drive chassis – and that is about it.

Time to tuck into something (hopefully) simple yet juicy.