the world is full of affordable cars
with kind of gray and white
personalities but the Gulf has always
been something more colorful and no golf
more saturated than the golf the first
thing I notice in our Golf R is that
let's face it a two liter inline-4 with
a turbo is always gonna feel like a two
liter inline-4 with a turbo you can get
buried under a lack of boost or too tall
a gear pretty easily so it's a car you
got to stay involved in but that doesn't
bother me because that's why you bought
an R got a whole mess of power coming on
here right when I need it as long as I
keep the revs up and keep that turbo
spool now we have that DCC adaptive
suspension I haven't done an a/b against
the dead steel version but this car does
not suffer from any understeer you point
it and it kicks right in that way I love
the sound this car makes but turns out
what I'm hearing isn't necessarily just
the engine there's something up in the
cowl at the base of the windshield an
electronic device called the sound actor
which resonates a synthetic growl up
through the bottom of the glass
apparently a lot of folks get in there
and unplug it I gotta say it's kind of
unseemly for one of the last great
honest driving cars so I'm sad they put
it there but maybe the engine doesn't
sound very good now I know many of you
rue the fact we don't yet have a manual
gearbox in this vehicle but I can tell
you this is a super snappy sharp and
quick DSG it's got pretty good around
town manners with the exception of
getting caught flat-footed sometimes in
automatic mode however I still have that
third panel just to really get in touch
with the simple but brawny honesty of
this car just a little better and
despite our 19th and our low profile
tires and our firm sports suspension and
all the things going on to keep this
thing really solid and planted ride
quality is really good you will have no
problem in everyday driving with your
arm since the last Golf R this one has
36 more horsepower yet uses three mpg
less on the highway so it's gone the
right direction on both counts this is a
fun little box pick you back to the
first
Golf GTI I drove way back in the day
this is what it felt like
that's good thing
you
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.