VW Golf R With 270HP & AWD

Ah, now this I like! At first I could think of it as being a poor man's R32 or R34 or whatever number Volkswagen is coming out with next. Or, you could also look at it as VW finally making a reasonably priced answer to the WRX and/or Evo. Or at least I hope it'll come in less than the R32 or whatever – because Volkswagen ain't talking price just yet.

The new Golf R gets its motivational power from the Scirocco R's 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder plant. It's slightly tweaked to put out 270 horsepower and 236 lb-ft of torque. Which is about comparable with the Subbie and the Mitsu. So why worry about those? Simple: They've got all wheel drive platforms, and so is the new Golf R.

Said Golf puts the power and grunt to the tarmac via a new hydraulic four-wheel drive system that is similar to the one found in the Audi S3 (ah, the wonders of corporate siblings and parts bin raiding). There's a six-speed manual gearbox that's the standard offering and a six-speed, twin-clutch DSG transmission will be optional. I'll go with the six-speed, twin-clutch DSG transmission, thank you.

All this mechanical daring do results in zero to 62 times of 5.7 seconds with the manual gearbox, and 5.5 seconds when the shifting is left to VW's sweet DSG dual clutch box. Either tranny also, sadly, will also get you a speed limiter that holds your vMax to 155 mph. But that's quick enough, consider the wheelbase (or lack there of) and aerodynamics.

So yeah, fun ... but Volkswagen has to get these things into the dealerships a lot cheaper than their predecessors. I had a lot of friends that were Euro car fans, and when the first VW Rs came out, they were quite pleased to see their chosen company "finally" going up against Subaru and Mitsubishi.

Sadly, the first R was a little slower and a lot more spendy than either of the current offerings from Subaru and Mitsubishi. Yes, I have noticed that the Rs have retained their value very, very well, and the resale prices are really up there, but that's sort of beside the point. The point here being: give us all wheel drive performance on the cheap.

Maybe VW will be able to do that now.

Source: CarScoop