Volkswagen is showing off a Golf R hatch with a wing that would make the designers of the Honda Civic Type R say that’s too much! It’s a wing that would embarrass anything automotive short of a Porsche 911 GT3 RS and, if you flipped it over, it might generate more lift than a Cessna 172.
Why is Volkswagen going against everything the Golf R normally stands for? Actually, there’s a very good reason for it. To mark the brand’s 25th birthday, it’s going racing again.
VW R Goes Back To The Track
2027 Volkswagen Golf R Show CarVolkswagen
The R in Volkswagen Golf R stands for racing, even if you’d never know it from the road cars. That’s because those cars are, well, designed for the road; delivering high speeds and excellent cornering in a humble body that blends into commuter traffic. Short of a few subtle aesthetic differences and the requisite badges, the average person wouldn’t know it was anything special.
It’s been a minute since the last R-badged Volkswagen has seen a track, though, or at least an R run by VW itself. To mark 25 years since the introduction of the Golf R32, the first Volkswagen to get an R badge, VW is going to fix that.
So Volkswagen has built an actual race car using the Golf R as its base. The Golf R 24H has been created to enter the 24h Nürburgring endurance race next year, to show that Volkswagen still knows how to do it.
“The 24h Nürburgring is the toughest test for us under real competitive conditions. The Nürburgring is also our test and development track, and we will meet people at the 24h race who share our passion for performance – which is why the project is a perfect match for Volkswagen R.”
-Reinhold Ivenz, Head of Volkswagen R.
The car you see in the photos is a show car. VW plans to show it off at the track this year to make sure fans can see that Volkswagen hasn’t forgotten about the R brand’s roots. The German automaker isn’t saying much about the specs for the racer, but has made it clear that the racing R will be all-wheel drive. That’s one of the main differences between GTI and the faster brand.
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The Most Extreme R Yet
2027 Volkswagen Golf R Show CarVolkswagen
It’s definitely the most extreme Golf we’ve ever seen from VW. The wing, with its swan-neck mounts that go through where the rear glass used to be, is wider than a standard Golf R, and it sticks out far enough behind the hatch that you’d need to put a red flag on it before they’d let you leave the lumberyard.
At least it isn’t wider than this Golf R, because Volkswagen has fitted some massively wide new fenders. They stick way out from the production body lines, and have complex vents and other aero elements.
Extra-wide side skirts, a huge rear diffuser, and a front splitter that sticks out almost as far out the front as the wing does out the back help balance the car at high speeds. No word on performance just yet, but we would expect more than the 315 horsepower the current 2.0-liter four makes.
2027 Volkswagen Golf R Show CarVolkswagen
The first Volkswagen R was that 2003 Golf R32. It crammed a 3.2-liter VR6 under the Golf’s hood, and added an all-wheel drive system. The R badge came back in 2006 with the MkV R32, and was changed to simply Golf R in 2013 when a new 2.0-liter car was introduced.
Volkswagen has done more than just Golf models with an R badge. The Passat, Scirocco, Arteon, and even Tiguan and Touareg have all received the R treatment at some point. The Touraeg R50 might be the most extreme of them all, and the 2008 model used VW’s 5.0-liter V10 diesel engine.
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The show car will be at the 24H Nürburgring later this month. Expect to see more about the real race car later this year, and for it to make its debut at the 2027 event in May next year.