Golf R 400 full press release

[monkeyhanger]

As said by others, you can get a pretty recent £60-70k (when new) proper sports car for same money as R400 will be new. It's a lot of money to carry the VW badge, rather like the Phaeton. For most wanting 400+ps, practicality will be at the back of their mind. At least standard Rs are less likely to be pinched when the R400 comes along. I'd rather see looking like a "wolf in sheep's clothing".

[Brenbo]

Price point and standard spec will be the deciding factor for most of us.  But I know if i could afford it I will be considering an R400, or at least looking in to the possibilities a lot more when the order books open. 

[monkeyhanger]

I can imagine people buying these and doing the exact opposite to the 1.2TSI "R" - taking all the external R styling off and replacing with standard R stuff. The external looks of the R400 have to be toned down when these go into production, it just looks very unVW in it's embellishment.

[mullermn]

I was quite excited when this was first announced, but I think it's wearing off.

It's powerful, but that will probably come with trade offs in other areas once the real car is available to look at, in the same way that the normal R loses boot space and fuel efficiency compared to the GTI. More importantly though, it looks terrible. The yellow looks really tacky and the front is ugly, as I imagine the insurance will be!

If you bought a normal R, tricked it up with all the options you want and tuned it up (for lower overall spend) how much power advantage would the R400 have left?

[p3asa]

I can imagine people buying these and doing the exact opposite to the 1.2TSI "R" - taking all the external R styling off and replacing with standard R stuff. The external looks of the R400 have to be toned down when these go into production, it just looks very unVW in it's embellishment.

I wonder though if that isn't the final look as the link to "car" states:

"Don’t worry: there is no Max Power bodykit lined up for this uber-Golf.
CAR understands that it’ll continue the understated, classy look of the GTI and R, but with a new spoiler and aero pack with splitters and extra addenda"

As the car shown certainly isn't understated.

[monkeyhanger]

GTI has 2 pipes, R has 4.....Who's thinking the back end of the R400 will be looking like a church organ? 

[p3asa]

I reckon the 2 exhausts on this video on the R400 are much more classy than the 4 on the R

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuztaVjpWug

[Mr Savage]

Yes the R400 will feature a central double exhaust taking inspiration from the R32 which looks the best in my opinion.

The R400 is celebrating Golf and it's years of being king. The car is taking various design inspirations from previous cars and making it into one car. In my opinion it looks brilliant, they don't need to tone anything down as this car is a celebration of VW's engineering feat so of course they want to shout about it for once. I think someone paying £40,000 with a car sub 4 seconds 0-60 wouldn't mind showing off in the styling department. Let's face it, it could be a lot more over the top if it wanted to be.

VW will be doing hardware changes to the R400 over the R, they never just do software tweaks. The benefit of the R400 is that you have an absolute monster of a car that would make short work of even a stage 1 R, while still being fully covered under warranty.

[Mr Savage]

According to the estimated price, would some of you really drop >£40k on one?  Just think what else you can get for that kind of cash...

What else can you get for £40k that will have 400bhp, awd and not forgetting the huge standard spec you get with the car?

I hear what you are saying, but it's still a Golf that costs north of £40k.  For a couple of thousand more I could pick up a 2013 Jag F Type (which I am just a little bit in love with at the moment), a 911 or an M3 etc.  Heck, I could even bag a Masarati Granturismo for £35k.  £40k opens up a lot of (IMO better) options, that's all I'm saying

I have to disagree with you there. Your forgetting what this is, a Golf, which gives you practicality and reasonable running costs still.

Sure you can have a 911, Maserati ect but this car would funnily enough be faster than all of those mentioned above while whipping them all in a 2L 4 Cylinder engine that just achieved 30MPG while taking your Grandma out to do her shopping (and fit it all in the boot).

You can buy a used Nissan GTR for the same price of an R, why didn't people do that? Because they want to beable to afford to run them! Invalid argument in my opinion and you can't even begin to compare cars with 4-5litres of engine capacity with a 2 litre Golf. You buy them for two completely different reasons.

[Brenbo]

I agree with you Mr Savage. 

I absolutely love everything about my GTI PP.  The Golf R didn't do much for me with it's styling, but the Golf R400 ticks all the boxes for me.  My personal  opinion is the styling of the Golf R400 is closer to what the Golf R should have been styling wise.