Skip to main content

A Swift Kick in the Rs: More “Extreme” Performance on its way

Although I’m sure that out in the real world most of us would go down swinging before admitting that there are any areas in which the Golf R could improve in any way whatsoever, within the sanctuary of these fora, we can admit that the Golf R might be falling behind the competition slightly.

Turns out Volkswagen agrees.

”The R brand is going extreme and can go extreme,” Jurgen Stackmann, head of sales and marketing, told Auto Express at the Beijing Motor Show. “The role of R is that it can go beyond the pure rational; nobody needs a compact car with 400bhp, but there is a place, certainly, and that’s the turf of R.”

With the (dearly departed) Focus RS churning out at least 50 hp more and the Civic Type R coming from the factory with cartoon-style speed lines, it’s easy for the Golf R to get lost in the crowd. Worse yet, the next Focus RS will allegedly make 400 hp—which may be what Stackmann was referring to, but we sincerely hope it was a taste of what’s planned for the Golf—so Volkswagen R has a lot of work to do.

While you might argue that the Golf R’s appeal was that it was a mature performance car, it must also be said that people tend not to buy performance cars for how sober and serious they are. Fortunately, it sounds like VW’s on top of it.

“With a little more expressive design, R can go beyond the rational side of things,” Stackmann said. “[The R brand] can find its place in a different league of pure performance and there’s a space where customers are willing to pay a significant amount of money.”

And just because VW’s working on electric vehicles, doesn’t mean that the R brand is an endangered species. With the I.D. R, VW is clearly signaling its intention to make performance electric cars.

The I.D. R shows “where can we take the R idea when it comes to the [electric] family,” added Stackmann.

[source: AutoExpress]

The post A Swift Kick in the Rs: More “Extreme” Performance on its way appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex https://ift.tt/2reXz11
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Watch: The Story of the Ads that Made VW Big in America

The ads for the original Beetle are almost as famous and well-loved as the Beetle itself. Looking back now it’s easy to forget, though, just how easily things could have wrong. A new short from Dial M Films tracks the history of those early Volkswagen ads that sold America on the people’s car. The story, of course, begins with the visionary agency that made the ads: Doyle Dane Bernach (DDB). As a popular agency for Jewish products, no agency was more aware of the implications of Volkswagen, and no one, it seems, was more skeptical of the brand than DDB. “Remember Those Great Volkswagen Ads?” from Dial M Films on Vimeo . William Bernbach, though, was adament that the firm take the client, probably as a way of attracting other lucrative automotive clients. Saddled with a client that he didn’t want, art director Helmut Krone says in the film that he originally came up with ads that were all wrong. Krone tried to do what other manufacturers did and was intent on selling the Beetle ...

Watch: The Stig Drives (nearly) Seven Generations of Golf GTI

With Volkswagen announcing “major” updates to the Golf, it seems an appropriate time to look back on what we’ve had so far. And who better to guide us through the rich history of the most popular European car ever made than Ben Collins, the former Stig? Some say he’s never met a GTI he doesn’t love, and that he can’t grow any of his own facial hair. All we know is … Ben Collins is actually a pretty solid presenter. Working his way through seven generations of the GTI (skipping over the Mk6) Collins tells us a little bit about each one and matches each mark to its corresponding facial hair craze. The Mk1 GTI for instance, is light and quick, but can lose traction under hard acceleration (in heavy rain). Despite that, Collins calls the Mk1 a “pure gem.” The Mk4, meanwhile, is a powerful return to form after the perhaps too sensible Mk3. Collins ends in the only way he could, with the Mk7, which accelerates faster than a Lamborghini Countach and is all kinds of wonderful. Watch, ...

Volkswagen Golf GTE Wins Top Honor at the 2015 Business Techies Awards

Golf GTE wins Green category in the 2015 BusinessCar Fleet Technology awards Judges praised the Golf GTE for its performance, ease of use and economy Golf GTE launched earlier this year with plug-in hybrid technology – priced from £33,755 204 PS performance combined with CO 2  emissions of just 39 g/km Volkswagen has added to its growing list of 2015 automotive industry accolades by winning the Green category in the annual BusinessCar Fleet Technology Awards – the Techies. The prestigious title was awarded to Volkswagen for the Golf GTE, an innovative plug-in hybrid that combines sporty dynamics with exceptional fuel economy and low CO 2  emissions. Now in their seventh year, the Techies are judged by both BusinessCar’s experienced editorial panel with help from TRL’s technology expert. The industry’s only technology-specific awards, the BusinessCar Techies reward the use of technology to make business car fleet operations easier, cheaper, cleaner, safer and more straig...