2010 TG Awards: Hot Hatch of the Year

Why is the Golf R so rarely seen on the road? It can only be because this car is unbelievably good. Most would deny a Golf could be worth 30-odd grand. It looks only subtly different from a base-model 1.6 TDI, so no one’s going to impress their mates with it. It’s only a 2.0-litre four-cylinder hatch, so it can’t be that special, right?

Oh, but it can. It’s difficult to know where to start in praising this car, because it’s extraordinarily good at so many things.

Words: Paul Horrell
Photography: Joe Windsor-Williams

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This article was originally published in the Awards issue of Top Gear magazine

Obviously, its performance must be brilliant: 0-62 in 5.7 seconds covers that off nicely. And even if it's just a four-cylinder, it's responsive and charismatic-sounding and up for the fight. And 4WD traction turns all the power into huge forward thrust through and out of corners. 

But then, 270bhp and 4WD were always going to make a fast hatch. What makes the Golf R a great fast one is that it also handles nicely and is beautifully damped. You, it and the road become a system. It’s hard to tell where you end and the car begins, and then when the car ends and the tarmac begins.

But the R does so much more. It rides well and it’s refined and you wouldn’t mind driving it across Europe.

It can’t be that good. Believe it: it can.