![]() ![]() It kept its turns clean and stayed remarkably sure-footed, almost like you were driving on clean pavement. Even the most adept crossovers and SUVs have their moments of slippage, but the Golf R on winter treads was an absolute monster. It's the best car I've driven in the snow in some time. to (attempt to) drive the Golf R in winter conditions last year. This VW s a car that almost anyone can hop into and drive well indeed, being too easy to drive is probably the one criticism I could come up with for it.Īnd there was a reason VW had us up to the U.P. The suspension is stiff, but not stagecoach-firm in everyday driving. VW has mastered the clutch tuning and smooth shifting for its manual transmissions. And you pair that precision with a muscular 315-horsepower output from the 2.0-liter engine.īut, like every Golf, driving the Golf R feels remarkably intuitive. The Golf R's new torque-vectoring AWD can send 100% of the torque to either rear wheel, allowing for both phenomenal grip and impossibly tight cornering. ![]() With the Golf R, however, those features exhibit themselves the first time you turn the car. Usually, when I describe the fancy tech features a sports car packs, I also explain how you won't experience them unless you're on track. And these days, with new car prices skyrocketing to crazy heights.if you can find a new Golf R for at or near MSRP, it's not that bad of a deal. There are few, if any, sports cars that can do everything a Golf R can do. And after all that.you can call me a Golf R convert. ![]() I drove the highway and delightfully curvy back roads to Hell, Michigan I shuttled my kids to their grandparents' house after a snow storm in it. Here in 2022, Volkswagen finally loaned me an American-spec version with a manual transmission to drive around in February. (Why the hell does anyone need a Nürburgring drive mode?) The car impressed me, but left me with the same impression. Last winter, I drove a Euro-spec version of the all-new 2022 Golf R in a slushy parking lot in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. (I appreciate simplicity, refinement and a touch of plaid detailing in my sporty cars.) As such, the loaded, high-powered and more expensive Golf R always felt like overkill to me. Naturally, the arrival of the new generation car brought with it expectations that both its comfort quotient and performance potential would continue to edge upward into the upscale universe - perhaps even with an eye towards stealing sales away from small crossover contenders like the M-adjacent BMW X2 and the AMG edition of the Mercedes-Benz GLB-Class.I've always been a Volkswagen GTI person. Redesigned for 2022, the Golf R pairs with the more modestly endowed GTI to represent the full breadth of the Golf lineup in North America (with its econo-minded siblings no longer being imported). Peel back the badge, and one also discovers that the hatch shares most of its platform with similarly sized Audi sedan brethren like the S3. It’s no stretch to say that the Volkswagen Golf R, which in recent years has sported class-above features like all-wheel drive matched with hammer-shot turbo horsepower, has served as a low-key flagship for the VW brand. At the fringes of the conversation, however, there’s long lurked a stealth contender for the premium hatch crown, a car that regularly crammed both E-suite comfort and Olympic-level athleticism into a pint-size package. True luxury compact hatchbacks never really caught on in the American mainstream, with most high-end automakers like BMW and Audi sticking to coupes or sedans at the entry level and instead sprinkling clamshell cargo compartments among its larger models (such as the A7 and the 4 Series Gran Coupe). ![]()
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