The VW Golf R Estate Is A 296bhp Four-Wheel Drive Super Wagon

What you’re looking at here is quite possibly the least surprising new car to make its debut at the LA Motor Show. The interweb has been awash with pics of this VW Golf R estate testing completely undisguised, so it’s hardly a shock to see it fully revealed. Since we love fast estates we don’t really care if it’s lacking that shock factor, we’re just rather pleased this new hot wagon contender is here.

Save for the new rump, which sports a 605 litre boot (expanding to 1650 litres if you fold the seats flat), it’s all as per the regular hatch, which means a turbocharged 2.0-litre four-pot kicking out 296bhp and 280lb ft of torque. Power is sent to all four wheels via a six-speed dual-clutch ‘DSG’ gearbox.

Not a fan of automatics? Bad news: when we spoke to VW, the company confirmed that the estate won’t be available with a manual gearbox. If that’s a disappointment, the performance figures should cheer you up: the estate will do 0-62mph in 5.1 seconds, just 0.2sec down on a Golf R hatch with the DSG ‘box equipped. The top speed is electronically pegged at 155mph.

Despite the punchy performance, it’ll still do 40.4mpg on the combined cycle, and puff out just 163g/km of C02.

There’s no word on prices just yet - these will be revealed closer to the order books opening in Spring 2015 - but each Golf estate model is currently priced at an £810 premium over the equivalent hatchback, so we can expect the wagon version of the R to retail at just over £33,000.