Do you know what? I really didn't want to like the Golf R. Why would you want to spend €50,000 on a dicreet Golf that has 70 more horsepower than the €36,000 GTi?
Yes, this is an enormous amount of money to spend on a Volkswagen Golf, which most people will barely look twice at on the street. But the thing is, that this is perhaps the beauty of this car. It is wonderful because of its discretion. Around town the DSG transmission is a breeze and on the motorway, if you want to be frugal, you can. I managed to average about 8 l/100km, which isn't too bad. But when you want, you can kick down and that 2.0-litre TSi engine snarls and it just comes alive.
We will reserve full judgement until the rest of the week, but so far, it is so very, very good.