The GTI, for its part, has an even higher-performance variant, thanks to the Clubsport 45, which the Golf R lacks. Established as a premium and comfortable hot hatch, there could be an opportunity for VW to strip the AWD model of some luxuries, lower the suspension a little, and produce a very high-performance version of it.
So far, the Golf GTI and R have been
pretty well received, even becoming a finalist for the North American Car of
the Year award. Although it’s unclear at this juncture whether or not this
model will be offered in the U.S. (the Clubsport 45 is not), the models that
are available here are at least equal to their European counterparts, something
that hasn’t always been true.
Our own Michael Gauthier, among the first
to drive the new, eighth-generation models, called them dynamos. Power ranges
from 241 hp and 370 Nm of torque for the GTI to
315 hp and 400 Nm of torque for the R. Whatever
is coming next, we won’t have to wait too long before we find out what it is.
Volkswagen says it will reveal the new model in February of this year.
