Skip to main content

Find Of The Day: Slick Silver R32

Today’s Find comes to us from Canada via Las Vegas. This 2004 R32 is a seriously slick and in excellent condition. For the right price you can call this car your own.

The R32 is an interesting beast. Volkswagen raided the corporate parts bin and cobbled together one sophisticated hatchback. They started with a standard Golf 2-door body shell, then added a 3.2-liter VR6 engine, a 6-speed manual transmission, Haldex 4-Motion all-wheel-drive, and independent rear suspension; all shared with the Audi TT 3.2 model. Inside there’s nicely bolstered Konig leather sports seats, alloy dash trim, and Climatronic climate control. Outside there’s a more aggressive body kit, 18″ alloy wheels, blue brake calipers, projector-beam headlights, and two polished exhaust tips. The overall look is…subtly aggressive.

[See image gallery at www.vwvortex.com]

Despite all this kit, the R32 occupies a strange space in the performance car world. To start, its zero-to-60 time, about 6.4 seconds, is nearly identical to the 1.8T GTI of the same era. Fanboys expected this uber-Golf to be a Subaru STI killer. It wasn’t. Nor could it bring down a Mitsubishi Evo. No, this was no hard-core all-out performance machine. It was closer to a grand-tourer. Does it have sporting pretensions? Heck yes! But it’s not a balls-to-the-wall gonzo speed machine. It’s the kind of car that you can drive aggressively without being punished by loud cabin noise or a backbone breaking ride.

This 2004 R32 has been very well maintained. With only 93,000 miles this hatch has been driven about 6700 miles a year. It lived with its first owner in Las Vegas, Nevada, so there’s not a speck of rust on it. It now lives in Toronto, Canada, where the current owner, VWVortex member smithgtivr, has also kept it out of snow and salt. Check out the interior pics; there’s little to no wear on the driver’s seat bolsters. The exterior is in great condition; the car has a ceramic-coat finish. Recent maintenance includes front wheel bearing, suspension bushings, plugs, fuel filter, and a few other things. The R32 also has some tasteful upgrades: Koni coilovers, Forge air intake, and a few other things.

So if you’re in the market for an all-wheel-drive grand tourer, something you can go canyon-carving in and take to your local Whole Foods, this could be the car for you. Check out the ad in our classifieds. The current asking price is $14,000 U.S. or $18,500 Canadian.

The post Find Of The Day: Slick Silver R32 appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex https://ift.tt/2M0ogyU
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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, ...

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 Zerouno Cruis’n USA

ItalDesign is drumming up excitement for its new supercar based around the same 5.2-liter Audi V10 that powers the R8. Naturally, it hit the road for a cruise around California last week to celebrate Monterey Car Week. There isn’t much in the way of V10 noise—which is a real shame given the sound it makes—but you do at least get a good look at the car inside and out in this video. With a body made entirely of carbon fiber and designed to be as aerodynamic and light as possible, ItalDesign figures that it will be good for a 0-60 time of just 3.2 seconds. “We put it our best skills into the production of the first car,” said Massimo Bovi, head of pre-series production, when the Zerouno was first unveiled in Geneva earlier this year. “Using some of the finest productions methods and engaging our high-skilled workers.” The car features clever aero tricks gleaned from single-seat racing, like a y-duct up front to improve downforce and turn-in. Available in a number of trim levels, the...