I love a properly fast hot hatch, but the first iteration of the Mk8 Volkswagen Golf R was a conflicting machine. Compared to the Mk7.5 that came before it, the new-for-2022 model featured a seriously upgraded all-wheel-drive system, but it also ushered in a round of irritating cost-cutting. The volume and climate knobs were replaced with capacitive-touch sliders that weren’t even illuminated at night, stuff you’d want to use was all seemingly buried two menus deep in the occasionally lethargic infotainment screen, and the result was a more irritating car to use than the old one. Well, Volkswagen had a mulligan for 2025.
While the Mk8.5 Golf R went automatic-only, it also brought more power, more options, and revised tech that promises increased user-friendliness. So, after spending a week with a 2026 model, have the changes worked? Is the Golf R once again a sensational one-car solution? Let’s find out.
[Full disclosure: Volkswagen Canada let me borrow this Golf R for a week so long as I kept the shiny side up, returned it clean with a full tank of premium fuel, and reviewed it.]
The Basics
Engine: Two-liter twin-cam 16-valve turbocharged intercooled inline-four.
Transmission: Seven-speed dual-clutch automatic.
Drive: Full-time all-wheel-drive with a clutched torque-vectoring rear differential.
Output: 328 horsepower at 6,500 RPM, 295 lb.-ft. of torque at 2,000 RPM.
Fuel Economy: 22 MPG city, 31 MPG highway, 25 MPG combined (10.5 L/100km city, 7.7 L/100km highway, 9.3 L/100km combined).
Base Price: $50,730 including freight ($54,145 in Canada).
Price As-Tested: $55,375 including freight ($60,245 in Canada).
Why Does It Exist?
There’s something about the human spirit that just makes us want to go faster. While the Mk2 Volkswagen Golf GTI was a fitting continuation of an automotive sensation, Volkswagen knew there was much more in the tank. The result was the supercharged homologation special Rallye Golf, the first fast all-wheel-drive Golf. It’s a cult classic, but Wolfsburg ultimately paused on weapons-grade Golf, aside from the A59 prototype, until 2003 with the R32. Even though the numbers after the R have been dropped since then, Volkswagen has had a long string of all-wheel-drive high-output Golfs for people who think the GTI is a bit too ordinary. The latest Golf R is no exception.
How Does It Look?
In full rude-boy spec of grey with black accents, the Golf R carries a subtle sort of menace. It doesn’t have gills or wildly flared nostrils, but you just get the sense that it’s up to no good. Sadly, there’s still only one way of dodging the German rainbow, a solitary shade of blue. Come on, Volkswagen. Wouldn’t this look tremendous in Great Falls Green or Merlin Purple or Ginster Yellow?
For the Mk8.5 facelift, the Golf R toned down its flics along the bottom of the front bumper, but brought in a more elaborate lattice of grillework. It’s definitely aggressive, although much of it is solid black plastic modelled simply for show. New lights feature sleeker elements, new wheels come with slimmer spokes, and that’s about it. By selecting a few choice aggro ingredients, the Golf R still flies under the radar. It’s generally a handsome hatchback, light bar inserted between the headlights notwithstanding. You could park it at a respectable office job and your judgiest co-workers would be none the wiser, and there’s something pleasing about that.
What About The Interior?
A few years ago, Volkswagen announced that it was moving back to buttons from capacitive touch controls. The updated Golf R missed out on that. The only real button on the face of the dashboard is the hazard warning lamp switch; everything else is virtual, including the steering wheel controls. Understandably, this is a bit of a faff. Feedback isn’t that great and sometimes doesn’t exist at all, which is a shame because the window switches and mirror controls show that Volkswagen still does buttons well.
If you can live with sliders for volume and temperature (they’re finally illuminated now), at least the cabin of the Golf R is still practical. Think huge door bins that can swallow even the largest water bottles, a center armrests that adjusts for height and slides back and forth, cup holders that swivel out in a large storage bin, and solid space both front and rear.
Those with keen eyes probably spied that this Golf R is equipped with cloth seats, and guess what? They whip an incredible amount of ass. With manual sliders, lumbar adjustment, height adjustment, and power backrest adjustment, durable-feeling inserts in an outrageous blue pattern, velour on the bolsters, and solid seat heaters, they’re just about perfect for daily use. Quick to adjust in the ways you want, cool after being parked in the sun, supple yet supportive, and eager to hold you in place. It all makes you wonder why on earth we ever decided that leather was the way to go.
How Does It Drive?
The Golf R’s 2025 facelift was something of a game of give-and-take. While the familiar two-liter turbocharged inline-four gained 13 extra horsepower to total 328 and a rorty-yet-tasteful Akrapovič exhaust joined the options list, the offering of a manual gearbox left the chat. Blame it on falling take rates in the rest of the world and emissions homologation, the only way to get a new Golf R is with a dual-clutch automatic gearbox. Has the sky crashed through the pavement? Not quite. While the old Golf R’s manual gearbox ensured you were always doing something, the shifter itself felt rental-grade. In contrast, the seven-speed DSG transaxle is as sharp as ever, and maintaining boost through shifts really helps with forward progress. Flick it into race mode, relax the stability control, mash the brake with your left foot and the throttle with the right, and you’ll be primed for a launch control start that rips you from zero-to-60 mph in a shade over four seconds with nary a trace of wheelspin. That’s diabolically quick for a hatchback, but perhaps the most amazing thing is the sense of complete control.
Thanks to a clever all-wheel-drive system, accurate steering with adequate feedback, and adaptive dampers that still breathe with the road even in their stiffest mode, the Golf R serves up an immense feeling of “I’ve got you, bro.” It shrugs off mid-corner bumps beautifully and is wonderfully intuitive to place on the road. The brakes are both strong and easy to modulate, and while peak cornering limits are nigh-on sports car-high, the Golf R tells you when you’re reaching the limits of adhesion. In the real world, with potholes and dips and crests and rain, anything faster than this feels like a game of diminishing returns.
Of course, if you’re aiming to be in your local tire dealer’s will, you’ll be reaching for this car’s party piece: Drift mode. Basically, the all-wheel-drive system can send up to half the engine’s torque to the rear axle, then a clever torque-vectoring differential can distribute up to 100 percent of the rear axle torque to either rear wheel. As such, drift mode works to overdrive the inside rear wheel, kicking the back end out on power and letting you pull hilariously immature slides. You do really need to provoke the Golf R to break traction at the back, but when that happens, you’ll experience a flavor of joy that’s exceptionally rare in hot hatch land.
Then, when you’re done being the sort of person your parents warned you about, you can simmer down, kick the Golf R back into comfort mode, and marvel at its sheer duality. Not only is this all-wheel-drive hyper-hatch much quicker than a Toyota GR Corolla and capable of actual power oversteer, but it’s also comfortable, quiet, and simply easy to drive. At the press of a capacitive-touch switch, it simply becomes a normal hatchback with prodigal passing power and impressive wet-weather grip. That’s this car’s USP: two fistfuls of fun when you want it, total ease when you need it.
Does It Have The Electronic Crap I Want?
As you’d probably expect for a range-topping hot hatch, the Golf R comes rather well-equipped. Beyond the enormous 12.9-inch infotainment screen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, you get a digital instrument cluster, a heated steering wheel, ambient lighting, LED headlamps and taillamps, a full suite of advanced driver assistance systems, tri-zone automatic climate control, power-folding heated mirrors, and a wireless charger for your phone. It even comes with Chat GPT-4 integration, which, as far as I can tell, doesn’t work. As it turns out, that’s because it isn’t active in Canada yet, and I’d personally like it to stay that way. What don’t you get? A 360-degree camera system, along with an actual volume knob. Boo.
Mind you, the infotainment in the Mk8.5 Golf R is so much better than on the pre-facelift model. Top-level icons for heated seats, illuminated sliders, quicker response, and a more cohesive menu structure. It still doesn’t beat actual physical controls, but I don’t want to go full Office Space on it anymore. It’s tolerable, which certainly beats the old infotainment setup’s wet-socks sort of unpleasantness.
Plus, the Golf R’s Harman/Kardon sound system is definitely one of the better setups in the genre. With a few equalizer tweaks, you can bump grime both loud and clear. Low-end extension isn’t anything crazy, but for a stock system in a hot hatch, this system will likely beat your expectations.
Three Things To Know About The Mk8.5 Golf R
- You can’t row your own gears anymore.
- The infotainment is much better than before.
- The available cloth seats are 100 percent worth it.
Does The Golf R Fulfil Its Purpose?
Absolutely. It’s not as livewire as the party-time Hyundai Elantra N, or as nerdy as the rally-influenced Toyota GR Corolla, or as scalpel-sharp as the track-attack Honda Civic Type R, but the Volkswagen Golf R fills a slightly different niche. Think of it as the one-car solution at this echelon of sport compact performance. It does the grocery run or lunch with your parents well, but it can still lay black streaks down a McDonalds car park and surprise pony cars. The tweaks to the infotainment system worked, resulting in a car you can enjoy for its mechanical aptitude.
However, the value proposition of a Golf R depends a lot on which side of the Detroit River you’re on, for a variety of reasons. Different trade agreements, different tariff situations, different market strategies, possibly even the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow. In America, a base Golf R is $3,270 more than a GR Corolla Premium Plus and $2,140 more than a Honda Civic Type R. We’re talking $50,730 before options. That’s a lot of dosh for a sport compact car, but it’s justifiable on the Volkswagen’s balance of capabilities.
However, in the Great White North, a standard Golf R is 4,232 loonies cheaper than a GR Corolla Premium and more than $1,500 cheaper than a Civic Type R. At $54,145 Canadian, the Golf R feels like a remarkably good deal, especially for this much performance and refinement. That’s about what a fully-loaded compact crossover costs, and I know exactly what I’d rather have.
What’s The Punctum Of The Golf R?
A seriously quick hot hatch for proper grown-ups, now with infotainment that doesn’t double-suck.
Top graphic image: Thomas Hundal
I’ve always wanted one of these. Then i look at the 19 or 20 inch rims with the rubberband tires and then look at my cratered Indiana roads and figure that I’m inviting trouble buying this trying to keep the rims unbent and the tires unpopped.
Are my fears unfounded?
I have 3 sets of tires/wheels for my Mk8.5 – two of them are 18″ which allows a little more meat and a better ride.
Your fears are not unfounded. I have a ’24 Mk8R which I down(up)graded to 235/40/18 tires from the oem 235/35/19’s immediately after purchasing new. I hit a pothole in January which took out the right front 18″ tire and wheel. My previous R was a ’18 which came with 235/35/18’s. Within 6 months of ownership from new, potholes in NJ destroyed 2 tires, but no wheels.I down(up)graded to 235/40/17’s and never had another issue over 4 1/2 years of ownership. My advice; get a real spare tire, and downsize the oem tires to 17’s. There are several 17″ wheels which will clear the front brakes on a MK8 R and I believe also the MK8.5. Otherwise, once I got used to the stupid haptics which I still get pissed off at on occasion, I absolutely love the car as it does everything I want.
For what it’s worth, I haven’t heard of any tyre failures on the Toronto press fleet Golf Rs, and our roads make the moon look smooth. They’ve already bubbled sidewalls on other press cars.
Nobody should be buying these until the real buttons come back, full stop.
Sixty large kankopeks for all the pain and suffering a VAG product can inflict and a crap UI. Pass thanks.
Having a wild color it certainly something I’ve never experienced until my GTI I picked up in January. Its Pomelo Yellow and the amount of people that will flag you down at a traffic light or walk up to you to ask about it in a parking lot its something else. I’ve had people come in to my office to ask who owns the green/yellow “Jetta” in the parking lot so they can talk about the color or how they used to have one years ago that they loved.
pay $60,000 and deal with dodgy quality and a UI i WILL hate every mile. Pass. I like cars that surprise and delight me. Not ones that give me an ulcer.
Frankly VWs seems to have double in price and and decreased in performance. Lower mpg and only increases after decreased performance of last model. I think the last Beetle actually out performs this at less than half the price. Although I may be remembering it wrong
I think you’re mis-remembering.
You are definitely remembering wrong with the beetle. Find the highest spec msrp from 2005 or 2010 and I think you’ll be surprised how comparable the cost is after adjusting for inflation.
Wait, so it’s still got the garbage capacitive controls everywhere? Backlighting that trash is lipstick on a pig.
And here I thought my biggest complaint was going to be that the steering wheel buttons were piano black. Little did I know.
Before Golf Gang shows up to crucify me-I owned a MK7.5 GTI and I’ve long been tempted by a MK8 R. They are blisteringly fast, staggeringly capable cars…and I enjoy the subtlety. But man, I just can’t wrap my head around paying this high of a price and having to live with the dreadful UI.
By the time you get one of these off the lot you’re looking at $55,000ish. You have to REALLY love the Golf to pay that much. I get that it’s not an apples to apples comparison but if you’re willing to go used you can get an M340i, CT4V BW, or even an IS500 for as much as a new Golf R, and the Civic Type R is significantly less. Hell an Integra Type S is the famed price.
Is all wheel drive that important to you? If so then I get choosing one of these. Or maybe you’re one of the 6 or 7 VW diehards that still exist. If that’s the case I get it too, the people that like the performance Golfs REALLY like them and they have as dedicated of a following and aftermarket as I’ve seen.
But if I’m going to deal with suspect German reliability and maintenance costs I’d rather have a new 330i or used M340i…and the other issue this car has is a low spec S3 is basically the same price. They come in real colors, have the exact same powertrain, and their interiors are considerably less fussy. I’m sure Audi is champing at the bit to ruin them though so I’d get one while you can.
These also aren’t exactly loaded with character. They’ve kind of got that German car “the numbers are perfect but it’s so good at everything there isn’t any edge” thing going on. That isn’t an issue with the CTR/ITS, GRC, or even Hyundai N’s…but it also depends on what you prioritize. For some people a cold, calculating, staggeringly competent car has its own unique appeal and I’m not gonna knock them for it.
Anyway, yeah…I’ve always been able to talk myself out of one, but that’s just me and your mileage may vary. The people that own these seem to really, really, REALLY love them so there is that…and to be fair I don’t think Golf R customers are cross shopping anything else. You have to really want one of these and it takes a specific person.
I had a MK7 GTI that I modified heavily chasing some sort of excitement from the car. the GTI/R are the perfect 1 car solution for 80% of people, I’m in that latter 20% that needs hair on fire and why I currently have a Civic Type R that is getting replaced with a GR Corolla.
That’s why I replaced my GTI with a Kona N. It’s objectively worse in myriad ways but it’s loud, it’s fast, it sounds good, and when you turn everything off it’s really off…hell the “sport” traction control setting allows me to do more than turning it off in my GTI did.
The GTI/R have always felt very German in that it’s a “you can have fun as long as it’s vithin our specific parameters and not a CENTIMETER beyond zem” situation. Like you said, perfectly fine for 80% of people or more. But if you want to do track days or test the limits of your car in any way they’ll leave you wanting more.
I had a friend who chose a A3 over a Golf (mid range 1.5 eTSI unfortunately) because of the lack of proper buttons in the Volkswagen.
I feel you on this. I have spent more than a decade trying to talk myself into a Golf R. At first I just didn’t have to money, but now it just gets harder and harder with each generation because of some deal breaking issue VW introduces. I was actually looking at one again last week, but just couldn’t get excited about it with the bad user interface, price, and the fact that the S3 is only slightly more. The reality that I still can’t afford to buy the R or S3 new, and I don’t want to try and afford either of them used and out of warranty, snapped me out of that futile search.
Since you mentioned the Hyundai Ns, a coworker picked up a new Elantra N a few weeks ago. It seems like quite a bit of fun for the price, though he got it in black instead of either of the nice blues they offer. Too bad.
I cross-shopped with an S3 when I bought last year; ultimately the S3 cannot be had without sunroof, and it isn’t a hatchback. Those two things clinched the R for me.
Headline LOL.
Fun, but expensive and no manual. If I am paying $50,000 for a sporty car, I want the experience of clutching and shifting, rev-matching, downshifting on inclines, feeling and controlling what the drivetrain is doing. It’s so much more engaging than just mashing the Go pedal.
$50k for a hot hatch that isn’t a manual sure seems like we have forgotten the whole idea of a hot hatch: a stripped down hatchback with a screamin’ good time engine.
New manual Nissan Z’s start at around $41k. Go figure.
I’ve bought two brand-new Golfs. A MK4 TDI and a MK7 GTI. Both were fantastic. Both were also stickshifts with non-idiotic interiors. And they didn’t look derpy on the outside. Nor were they painted in dark clear coated primer. And the prices weren’t epically stupid.
Hardest of hard passes on this.
Automatic only? All that electronic crap that nobody really needs? Black wheels?
$50,730 before options?
CP today.
I know it’s expensive, but you’re getting a lot of car here. A CTR or GRC may be cheaper, but they don’t excel at being a normal car the way the Golf does. The inside of a GRC is a Corolla, which means it’s full of cheap, hard plastics and ugly design. The Golf R just doesn’t play in that space. It’s for grown-ups.
As far as cargo capacity and passenger space go, the Golf R is so close to the S5 that it pretty much doesn’t matter. The Golf R is two tenths slower than the S5 both to 60 and in the quarter, which also doesn’t matter. It’s also better looking and has dope cloth seats. It’s just as good as if not better than an S5 for nearly $20k less, and it’s kind of the same as an S3 for $5k less, so the real competition is Audi. I don’t see a compelling reason to by an S3/S5 over the Golf R.
In my personal experience the CTR is a far superior choice for being a regular car. Ignoring the boy racer exterior the seats are sublime, it rides better and can swallow significantly more stuff. In my MK7 I couldn’t fit a rear facing child seat behind myself, not a problem in the civic. As for material choices, I don’t understand everyone’s obsession with hating on hard plastics in non-frequently touched zones. If it has good seats, good steering wheel, a good shifter, and a padded armrest what else do you actually need? I can count the number of times on one hand that I have touched the dashboard of my Civic. All of them were a congratulatory smack for that track session or autocross run.
The Golf R is for people that think they need to be grownups, without realizing that no one else actually cares what they drive.
Coming from a Golf to a Civic: the rear seat wasn’t all that different to me. Rear-facing child-seat doesn’t work behind me in the driver’s seat in either, but was functional behind the passenger seat.
But while the Civic’s hatch area is far deeper: the vertical space on the Golf made it feel like I could fit more awkward shaped objects and still close the hatch. Apples and spaghetti comparison, really.
But I also found that the Golf continued to get subjectively worse after the Mk5/6 in my eyes. The lack of buttons implies the trend continues with the Mk8.5
Sorry, replied to wrong comment.
Or for people who want to pay the manufacturer to put on the pep boy articles
Seems like the one near Universal complaint about the CTR is it rides too rough. Interesting to see your comment about it riding better.
Comparison of Apple’s to shoes
Your comparison of a S5 to a Golf R is off track as they are different vehicles targeting different consumers, just as comparing a 1978 Fiat Spyder to a Golf R would be like comparing Flip Flops to Nike running shoes. Don’t get me wrong, the Spyder is an awesome car, as are many sport cars of that generation. The S5 and the R are both awesome cars designed for different drivers with different requirements, those requirements certainly differing from drivers who desire a drop top two seater.
Completely agree with you. I owned a ’18 R for over 4 years, sold it and purchased a S5 Sportback with less than 10k miles. Really liked the S5 which I tuned IE stage 1, but truly missed my R. I purchased a ’24 R new, tuned it IE stage 1 93 octane and have just added IE TrueFlex so I can run E85, 93 or 91 octane, switching maps on the fly. The R is powerful, economical, capacious, rides and handles well. GRC is boy racer style with an overstressed 3 cylinder, while CTR has grown out of the boy racer style. Having driven several CTR’s, both old and new body style, the R is far more comfortable. I am not dissing the Honda, as I have owned a ’06 and ’13 Civic Si and loved them both. Honda dependability is awesome. I have never had any mechanical issues with either of my R’s.
I currently have an ’18 S5 sportback IE stage 1. Sometimes the idea crosses my mind to trade it in for an R. The EA888 has way better support than the EA839. I can run trueflex but there’s no on the fly map switching and none of the other neat tricks that IE is coming out with like adjustable burbles and whatnot, although they say it’s on the roadmap.
At $60K CDN that’s a hard WOOF from me, especially with no MT on offer.
Man, if I’m dropping $50k+ on a car it better have an HMI that is better than “tolerable”. Also as lamented, the color choices baffle me.
For fun, I plugged the 2008 R32 MSRP into an inflation calculator ($33,640 according to KBB), and it came to $53k in today’s money. So the price isn’t as absurd as I felt at first, knowing that inflation calculators aren’t perfect and that consumer purchasing power has diminished.
I wants me leather because dogs and I’m a messy dude easy to wipe stuff off leather, also needs some wagonage
Available as an R Variant on this side of the pond.
Leather easier to wipe off than what? Linen, suede, paper, treasure maps? Sorry vinyl and cloth clean up easier and hard plastic is perfect. Only the surface of leather cleans well but you can smell every spill in the summer
The infotainment may not double-suck anymore but those stupid wheels at least triple-suck. They’re gonna home in on every pothole like a heat-seeking missile so they can explode on impact.
The R is moderately compelling. It’s a lot of performance for the money if you go light on the options and it seems more refined as a daily than the Toyota and Honda, but the lack of a manual gearbox is a real problem for me. Hot hatches need to have a stick shift. Automatic-only opens it up to competition from other vehicles new or lightly used for me.
Not the Warmenau wheels on the 8.5 – forged, 17.6 pounds each. The 35 profile tires though…
$55K!!!! as tested, $50K least expensive Golf R?
No thanks!
Yeah, I love the GTI and the Golf R, but $55k for this is insanity.
The orignal Golf R (2004 R32) had a base MSRP of just under $30k. In today’s dollars, that $53K. Its expensive, sure, but not unreasonable. What other car goes 0-60 in the low 4s for the same asking price? Not many.
Touch slider controls for hvac and volume, still hard no from me. Glad the shitty control surfaces are backlit now I guess?
Seems the review is desperate to give the kool aid a solid review even when there is a huge turd sitting in it. I had a mk6 and I think I’d rather go back to that than drop 50k on a new car with such poor UX design. I cant even stand the rentals I’ve had for a week with touch controls, let alone spend that kind of money on it.
It’s “played out” at this point, every review has called it out, but for damn good reason.
Thank you for giving me an opportunity to get up on my soap box. My new-to-me 2024 GTI was almost a buy-back case due to infotainment bugs. It spent nearly a month at the dealer while they ‘diagnosed’ issues related to the car-net system.
Reality was, the car sat on the lot while an IT ticket floated off in the VW corporate abyss. Long story short I got the car back after nagging for weeks for any updates on their diagnosis. It really shook my faith in the car and VW’s ability to sort out bugs that should be have been ironed out on a test bench. The amount of hand wringing and excuses they fed me was unbelievable.
I’m sorry to hear that, truly. As a software quality engineer the amount of trash that gets pushed into production while us test & quality folks get laid off is insulting and infuriating.
Plus, what kind of shitty dystopia is this where your hot hatch gets laid up sick by a bad radio? Ugh.
Thank you. As another engineer in the industry, their excuses only made me more upset. And ditto on the layoffs.
Dynamically/mechanically I love the car. However, I’d had have hard time recommending it to others over this.
> it can still lay black streaks down a McDonalds car park
Give me a bag of McDonald’s and a sleeve of Oreos and I can do the same thing a whole lot cheaper.
Both the GTI and the R are very good at being sporty when provoked and calm the rest of the time. It doesn’t make them versatile, it makes them boring.
Sure, if you do track days or live near twisty canyon roads you’re willing to drive recklessly, it’s a neat trick to then drive home in what feels like an ordinary Golf. But it also means that the rest of the time you’re commuting in what looks and feels like a Golf, but cost twice as much.
I find that the best trick an enthusiast car can pull is to feel special even when you’re driving it slowly, and that’s basically the opposite of what the Golf does. I’m sure there are lots of people out there who like that split personality, but I owned a GTI and spent most of my time with it bored.
Hard disagree.
It’s about letting you drive the car you like how you want – even if that means you’re just abusing roundabouts and highway ramps on your commute home after stopping at Home Depot for something for the house, before you pick up the kids to take them to soccer.
To me, the older Golf GTI/R fit that bill.
No not even close
That’s the thing. The GTI was historically plenty fun for a small upcharge over a nicely-spec’d Golf. It simply took all the things that made the Golf great and upped the fun factor a good bit. The R was always stupidly expensive for what it really is, and I think they are pointless.
I was never bored with my MK7 and selling it was one of my greatest moments of automotive stupidity. It always felt “just so” even just running out for groceries.
Golf R and GTI both sat in the practical “I could live with this at any stage of life”.
But the loss of the 6MT just means it’s not for me.
This car tells me nothing. I am sure it is massively competent and fast, but still nothing.
It’s a crime that VW stopped making seemingly anything in Great Falls Green. Which is a very very very good green.
I don’t understand fun car in unfun color.
Actually that is the only point I can see with this car. Make it look as boring and as a close to the base Golf as possible, but underneath you’ve got the mechanicals to cross countries at a scorching pace.
We don’t even get the base Golf here (just GTI and R) so I don’t think anyone is mistaking a Golf-like thing as anything other than relatively fast. Not anymore anyway.
They don’t need to paint it 20 shades of neon, but it would be nice for it to come in some colors. The GTI only comes in red (nice) and a decent if somewhat boring blue. Feels like if I’m spending 35-55k on a GTI/R, I should get some options on what paint it gets.
I am all for colours, don’t get me wrong, I drive a green car after all.
But in Europe the good thing about those is being classless.
No just cross country at 10% faster than the base model. But the base model performance was lowered so the difference seems better
Well our base model has 115bhp.
So the R has almost triple the power and twice the driven wheels.
On the other hand that base Golf tops out at 126mph. So in the real world probably you’d arrive at the same time Berlin to Barcelona.
I really miss the Mk5 Fahrenheit Orange.
That one really popped.
That was an excellent orange, if a bit shouty (to be fair, it’s orange).
There’s an orange GTI I see occasionally that’s just barely clinging on to life around me. It’s a fun sight.
Makes two of us. I swear 75% of the Miatas around here are in that horrid shiny primer color. Which is an absolute crime when Soul Red is on the menu – and I don’t even particularly like red on cars.
Mazda might be the number one culprit of limiting color choice. Soul red is a truly great color, but it’s often the only real color in the entire lineup, other than the occasional neutral blue color they sometimes offer. Offering only one good color can only go so far.
They are all terrible at this point. And WTF is with the higher the performance version of the car, the fewer color choices you get? If I am spending MORE, I want MORE choices.
That’s probably my biggest complaint. If I’m spending real money I should have more say in things like paint color. I get why the color palette for rental fodder might be depressing.
Even worse, they simply don’t build many in the few colors that are theoretically available. As evidenced by me doing a search and only finding a single blue GTI (in top spec of course) within 100 miles of me.
Also why my GTI was white. Zero Blue ones to be found, and I didn’t want red, gray, black, or silver. At least white was very practical in the FL sun. And they do look good in white with the red accents, even if it’s boring. But I would absolutely have paid the $5K to access the absolute rainbow of colors the Europeans got to choose from, that they offered on the Golf R the next year too. Sigh. But I suppose the issue is that Mexico wasn’t setup to paint that way.
I LOVED ordering my two BMWs. 15+ exterior colors, and almost as many interior colors to choose from. And no restrictions on combinations of the two, unlike so many stupid companies. Actually, I was still in the era where you could actually order individual options and not just trim packages. I actually got to have them “my way”.
Which is something BMW and any lux brand should obviously be offering, for sure.
VW I get it, they’re not selling bucketloads of GTIs and the margins aren’t probably as high as they’d want them to be. But it’s still a 35k+ car. There should be at least a few more options.
VWs tend to look good in white. If I was forced into grayscale, white would be my pick. Hides salt spray. Keeps the car cool in the summer. I’ve owned two black cars and immediately regretted both of them lol.
I would have put up with the dark car pain for a blue one if I could have gotten one. But yeah, also had two black cars in Florida – never again.
A Golf R costs BMW money today – there is no excuse.
I’d be so excited to read an inside account of the financial decision to restrict colors, but I guess I’m easily excitable. How much do they save per unit by not offering a real color? Also what’s with the black wheels all the time? They must be cheaper to make in some way; maybe they hide casting flaws better.
Black wheels also drive me nuts lol. I also assume they’re trying to hide imperfections. It’s hard enough to make any car not look gross 6 months a year up here, black wheels make it impossible.
The color thing almost feels like collusion to me. I know enough apathetic people who have said “yeah I didn’t want gray, but that’s all that they had” to know that if colors were an option they would probably sell better than expected. But dealers loveeeee keeping inventory to basically a single option.