Conventional wisdom often dictates that in order to boost the performance capabilities of a road car, an inevitable trade-off must be made in terms of comfort, drivability, amenities, and so on. After our seat time in the all-new GTI last year, we left San Francisco thoroughly convinced that VW had reclaimed the title as the manufacturer with the hot hatch to beat. Because of that great mixture of fun, usability and pragmatism, we approached our stint with the new Golf R with some slight trepidation, wondering if the car’s bolstered enthusiast credentials would upset the balance of such a well-sorted vehicle. Fortunately, our concerns were unfounded – the Golf R retains all of the GTI’s best attributes and cranks up the sporting prowess considerably with virtually no drawbacks – provided you don’t spend too much time looking at your bank statement after you leave the dealership.
When faced with the choice between developing either a coupe or a wagon version of the Cadillac ATS sedan, GM’s luxury-car executive chief engineer Dave Leone recently was quoted as saying “Wagons are only popular in three places—Europe, Australia, and in journalists’ driveways.” Dave may be (totally) right, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to stop singing the praises of the fast longroof segment. So with that in mind, it should come as little surprise that we’re particularly smitten with VW’s reveal of the Golf R Variant today at the LA Auto Show.
VW is bringing a pair of concepts to the Los Angeles Auto Show that both started life as fairly standard Golfs, but while one is more or less steeped in reality, the other was born and bred in the virtual world long before any consideration was made to actually building a physical example of it.
At this week’s Detroit auto show, VW brought out the latest high performance version of their seventh generation hatchback, the Golf R. Along with updated styling, the new hot hatch gets more power, a new transmission option, better fuel economy and, perhaps most intriguing, a more flexible all-wheel-drive system.
At this week’s Detroit auto show, VW brought out the latest high performance version of their seventh generation hatchback, the Golf R. Along with updated styling, the new hot hatch gets more power, a new transmission option, better fuel economy and, perhaps most intriguing, a more flexible all-wheel-drive system.
Volkswagen has announced its new Golf R, which gets a redesign, more power, and better fuel economy.
If you’re going to buy a Volkswagen Golf R, there are two things you need to know.
In the newest issue of Winding Road, the Subaru STI and Mitsubishi Evo go head to head in a final bout for this generation. Plus, we have lots of other great automotive content this month’s issue.
At this year’s GTI Meet in Wörthersee, Austria, Volkswagen has unveiled its Golf R Cabriolet concept. After displaying the Golf Cabriolet in Geneva, it has decided to go a step further and explore the concept of a droptop version of its sporty Golf R.
Alright, folks, honesty assessment time. How many of you really have grounds to believe that the Golf R32 VR6 4Motion (now breathe) was the best thing since pimped white bread? Really and truly?
Well, categorically, it wasn’t.