Volkswagen Unveils a Crazy Golf R400 in Beijing

Published on April 22, 2014 in Beijing by Frédérick Boucher-Gaulin
Volkswagen Golf R400

If you ever drove a Golf R, you know just how amazing the car is. Powerful, agile, and available with a manual transmission. And if you sat in a Golf GTI, you can probably imagine an R: 100 HP more, and all-wheel drive for added grip.

At the Beijing Auto Show, VW just presented a souped up version of the Golf R: the R400. The idea is simple: take a regular Golf R, and add about 100 HP (!) for a total of nearly 400.

The engineers from Volkswagen's R division took a 2 liter turbocharged engine, and upgraded it with a bunch of technologies developed for the Polo WRC Rally program. The resulting car now has about 200HP/liter, and blasts from 0 to 100 in 3.9 seconds, on its way to a top speed of 280 km/h.

And here is the very sweet part: unlike a lot of crazy VW concepts, this one has been approved for limited production!

Now, we have to see if Volkswagen decides to sell it here...