"I make my living coming up with colorful descriptors -- shifters that engage like bolt-action rifles or tires that grip the road like a kitten scrambling up a drape. (I didn't come up with either of those, by the way.) But as I pushed the new Golf R through the snake-like curves of the About.com Top Secret Curvy Test Road, all I could come up with was, 'What a neat friggin' car!'
A quick history review: The Golf R is a descendant of the R32, first imported to the US in 2004. It had a 240 horsepower 3.2 liter narrow-angle V6 engine, 6-speed manual transmission (rare at the time), and all-wheel-drive, and it was a great car -- very fast and a lot of fun. The R32 returned in 2008, this time with a 250 hp V6, and -- for US models -- a 6-speed twin-clutch automatic transmission (DSG in Volkswagen parlance) as well as a $33k price tag. Despite a limited run of 5000 cars, the '08 R32 didn't strike the same chord as the original. I blamed the automatic transmission and the high price." [Continue reading...]
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