The appearance of the VW Golf R Variant was never going to be a huge shock. We’ve seen the Golf wagon, we’ve seen the Golf R. Smoosh them together and you get, well, this. And doesn’t it look good? Spied with almost no camouflage to speak of and sporting the R-appropriate shade of blue that we’ve all come to know and love, it looks just about right.
When we last saw the Golf R wagon testing,
it was still covered in test equipment in the snowy north. Now, we can see
pretty much all of its details driving outside the Nurburgring. Although there
is some tape covering the R badging, the vehicle seen here has blue brake
calipers, sizeable wheels, Golf R bumpers front and rear, and side skirts to
boot. It also gets the Golf’s new light-up grille that looks kind of fun and
aluminum mirror caps to really complete the look.
Although we don’t know for sure, there’s
no reason to suspect that this won’t get exactly the same driveline as the
standard-length Golf R. That means a turbocharged, 2.0-liter engine making 315
hp and a mild hybrid 48V system to keep things premium. The sprint to 62 mph is
handled in just 4.7 seconds in the smaller R. This one should be able to come
close to that, but might not quite match it.
Most of Volkswagen’s development efforts
for the Mk8 R went into making it handle better. With a drift mode, torque
vectoring, and improved chassis dynamics, Volkswagen’s test driver managed to
get the new R around the Nurburgring 19 seconds faster than the old one. We
don’t have an official date for the unveiling of the Golf R Variant yet, but
based on this test car, it doesn’t seem like it we’ll have to wait too much
longer.
