YOU KNOW THE Weeknd’s song that goes “I can’t feel my face when I’m with you, but I love it”? That song sums up perfectly my time spent with the Volkswagen Golf R. When I was behind the wheel of this car I was smiling so much my face hurt.
And yet, to look at it you’d hardly know that this is the most powerful Golf. The differences between the R and regular Golf are subtle. It has an R-specific grille, R-specific front and rear bumpers, a rear spoiler, dark red tail lights and twin double exhaust.
The 19-inch Pretoria alloy wheels and Deep Black pearlescent paint job do a fantastic job of making my test car look rather menacing but it still doesn’t scream ‘Tarmac Terroriser’.
Even when you get inside, it’s business as usual with space for four passengers, a decent 380-litre boot and the same high quality materials and eight-inch touch screen system as the regular model.
But those Alcantara/leather front sports seats give the game away as does the speedometer that goes up to a Bahnstorming 320km/h.
Once in them, those sports seats are comfortable and cosseting. You sit nice and low making you feel quite connected with the car and its lower stance makes you feel quite connected with the road too. It’s all rather racy.
However, it’s not until you get out on the road that you realise just how special this Golf really is.
Like I said, it rides lower than a regular Golf with stiffer suspension too. But it also has the 4Motion all-wheel drive system and the 2.0-litre TSI engine tuned to 310hp.
Now, that may not sound like much, but this is a Golf we are talking about and that’s a lot for a car this size. My test car also had the six-speed manual clutch and putting all this together the Golf R has a 0-100km/h time of just 5.1 seconds. That’s Porsche territory. It also has a top speed that is limited to 250km/h. That’s very brisk indeed.
The car has three modes, Eco, Normal and Race. But once you select the latter there really is no going back. In Race mode, you can feel the car get a little giddy, or maybe that was me, but either way the car feels a little more rambunctious.
Then, when you put the foot down, the way it gathers pace is absolutely ridiculous. There is 380Nm of torque available from just 1,850rpm making acceleration nice and linear too. You are pushed back in your seat and feel the biggest grin spread across your face. The 310hp doesn’t fully kick in till 5,500rpm which means it is fun to work the car hard – but no matter where I was in the rev range I always felt like I had ample amounts of power.
The steering is progressive. You don’t need to turn the wheel much to corner or to get a full lock and this makes the car feel very agile and responsive and the manual gearbox is snappy with a great feel to it. It just all adds up to one fun car to drive.
Out on the open road this thing just goes like the clappers with a fantastic burbling, gurgling, and crackling soundtrack firing out of the exhausts. It’s stupidly fast in the corners too with that 4Motion all-wheel drive grabbing on to the tarmac and thrusting you straight through.
However, if the car does detect any slipping or you are cornering a bit too enthusiastically it will send torque to the back wheels and will get you out of any trouble by adding more power. Oh, and the brakes are reassuringly powerful and progressive.
It’s just a highly competent and confident car and offers a sensational combination of speed, traction and mature road manners. It’s reliable and rapid making the Golf R a very sensible and grown-up way of going very fast.
The Volkswagen Golf R has an OTR price of €46,570 and it does come well kitted out for that price – although at this point it’s more of a heart decision than head decision, and the kids don’t really need to go to college, do they?
It’s very hard to find fault with this car. Perhaps the interior could be a bit more exciting, and the steering could do with a bit more feedback and those 19-inch low-profile tyres make the ride harsh on our pothole riddled roads.
But these can easily be overlooked because of what a blast it is to drive, and I love it, and I love it.
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