Watch: Chris Harris Pulls a Golf R’s Handbrake at Speed to See What Happens

Among the many excellent features of the Golf R, a good ol’ fashioned handbrake does not count. It’s sad, but so is polio and apparently we’re willing to overlook that in pursuit of things that make “instinctive sense.”

But the nice thing about a mechanical connection is that it’s predictable. A lever only ever does one thing (unless it’s broken when it does one other thing: nothing). It may be limiting, but it’s also useful.

Digital connections allow for all kinds of intricate details to be added, even if they aren’t always evident to the end user. Yes, like a Microsoft program, there are all kinds of features included in VW’s electronic handbrake that you’ll probably never know about.

Thank goodness for Chris Harris, then. Beneficiary of an empty track and some left over hockey equipment, he set out to find out what happens if you pull an electronic handbrake at (German) highway speeds.

The answer is, as you might expect, sensible. Rather than locking up a back wheel (as in the olden days) the car slows to a halt. It’s all undramatic and safe, which makes sense given who designed it. But it does also mean that, as predicted by those old hosts of Top Gear, that handbrake turns are also a thing of the past.

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