From 1998 for all your inflation enthusiasts.
An "R" cost £20,000 versus £32,000-ish today
If you spent an arm and leg over those 20 years to keep it nice, then expect to get about £4000 back
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201808199651519
Are they MK4 prices there?
Not really comparing apples with apples. The VR6/R32 were a lot more expensive than the GTI of the same era because they had a V6 engine as well as the haldex set-up, as opposed to now where it's using a very similar engine to the GTI with the same displacement, but with a bigger turbo and injectors (a few other small differences i'm sure), and the haldex. A better comparison of VW inflation is 2.0GTI to 2.0GTI.
The R is basically a GTI PP that's had a remap and half of the £1100 cost of a haldex unit (the price differential Audi change between quattro and non-quattro variants of the same car on the A3) offset by not having the PP's diff - for that reason, the MK7 R is relatively little more than the GTI compared to the VR6/R32 of old.
To be honest, the MK7 GTI looks very expensive compared to the outgoing MK5 price, but compare MK5 to MK6 and MK6 to MK7 and you'll see that it was the introduction of the MK6 where VW really hiked the prices up, MK7 came in with a ton of extra tech and was only a few hundred quid more than the outgoing MK6 RRP.
The MK6 added about £200 of equipment over the MK5, saved a lot of assembly time and cost by introducing a massively simplified multilink rear suspension, and cost about £4k more. It was a move that pushed me to the well equipped Scirocco, as it looked a steal next to the MK6 Golf.
Now all the lease specials have left the leasers hands and been resold, R used prices are looking pretty solid again - I was surprised to see 15 Reg manual Rs going for between £21k and £22k at most franchised dealerships - was expecting it to be more in the region of £18k. On that basis, i'm hoping to get £16-17k for mine in p/x next march if I do chop it in for the wife to have a Polo GTI+, when i'm presuming it will have depreciated by less than £2k at retail between now and then.