Price and equipment
The old R32 struggled to justify its hefty premium over the GTI but the new R closes the value gap from a $17,000 chasm to a sub-$10,000 crevice. A $48,490 opening sticker for a three-door manual is $7000 cheaper than before and the five-door now starts at $49,990.
VW has taken out the leather, heated seats for cloth-microfibre pews to help bring the R-badged Golf below the $50,000 mark for the first time but ultimately there are more gains than losses.
Front and rear parking sensors are now included in the price.
Other goodies include 18-inch alloy wheels, dual-zone climate control, cruise, bi-xenon headlights, visual parking aid with sensors and six-CD audio with colour touch screen.
It’s also the only Golf on which metallic paint doesn’t cost extra. The German maker, however, continues to be mean-fisted with Bluetooth, while adaptive shock absorbers also could have been made standard to further distance it from the GTI.
If you want to increase the R’s obsession with black, you can even buy (bigger) alloy wheels painted in the colour of the night.
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