Quick Golf anoraks: have your spotters' aides primed and ready. Past the positions of Golf GTI, Golf R and Golf Clubsport, you have another variant to learn. This is the VW Golf GTI TCR.
That is TCR as in Touring Car Racing, not long-dead Scalextric Rival Total Control Racing. It couldn't be any more obvious, this new super-Golf is planned to be the street going variant of the off-the-rack GTI TCR visiting auto. VW will offer you the stripped out, slicks-shot, wings-and-tings rendition for £95k, and off you jog to swap paint with the Seat Leon and Peugeot 308 TCR racers.
Obviously, it's not street legitimate, and since the VW Clubsport S sold out, the Germans have had an outrageous GTI-sized opening in the streetable quick Golf family. At the Worthersee celebration of Volkswagen Group fanboyism, that gap gets stopped.
The GTI TCR's 2.0-liter turbo motor creates 286bhp – 50bhp in excess of a GTI Performance Pack – however 20bhp not exactly the Clubsport S which once held the Nürburgring front-drive lap record. At that point something many refer to as the Honda Civic Type R happened.