- 4 months ago
With the all-new 2025 Volkswagen Golf R (MK8.5) now here in Australia, Ben McKimm from Man of Many gets behind the wheel to figure out if this is still the ultimate executive express, and if the price tag matches the performance.
Ben dives into what makes the MK8.5 Golf R one of the most complete hot hatches on the road. From its 245kW turbocharged engine to the R-Performance Torque Vectoring, this AWD performance hatch is tested thoroughly across real-world conditions.
We break down the upgra
Ben dives into what makes the MK8.5 Golf R one of the most complete hot hatches on the road. From its 245kW turbocharged engine to the R-Performance Torque Vectoring, this AWD performance hatch is tested thoroughly across real-world conditions.
We break down the upgra
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I love my Golf GTI. It's the purest of all the hatchbacks. It's the original hot hatch.
00:05I don't need any of that all-wheel drive business. I don't care that I get chopped
00:08at the lights by Golf R owners. What's that?
00:20This is the new Mark 8.5 Golf R and today I'm going to show you guys around the exterior
00:24of
00:24the car. We're going to jump inside and check out the interior and some of the new tech.
00:28And then we're going to take it for a drive including a little bit of track time. Let's check it
00:32out.
00:45The Golf R has always been the sharpest suit in Volkswagen's wardrobe but with the Mark 8.5 it's
00:50more tailored than ever. The changes over the Mark 8 might seem subtle but look a little closer and
00:56evolution becomes clearer. Up front there's a completely redesigned front bumper. It's more
01:00sculpted, more aggressive and crucially distinct from the GTI. Gone is the shared lower grille from
01:05the Mark 8 generation. There's a cleaner more motorsport inspired look with vertical blades
01:10and larger intakes that hinted the car's increased cooling needs and performance intent.
01:14I love the LED matrix headlights. They're slimmer, sharper and they're redesigned with an animated light
01:20signature. Yes, the glowing Volkswagen logo makes a return and it's also shared with the GTI. The R has
01:26always been a subtle but effective flex I think compared to the GTI which also gets all this LED
01:31makeover. It just feels more focused, it's a little less playful, it's more professional. Not much has
01:36changed down the side of the car at least at a distance. The wheels though are a standout especially
01:41these new 19 inch Warmanauer forged alloys and you can find them on the black edition here in Australia and
01:46soon the Warmanauer edition as well. They drop nearly 8 kilos of unsprung weight. Visually they bring a
01:52motorsport edge that is sort of lacked in the past. Still I like the standard wheels as you can see
01:57in
01:57all these photos on the blue car but I have a spot for the diamond cut Warmanauer wheels arriving on
02:02that
02:02special edition soon. Changes at the back, they're more restrained. There's a new rear light signature,
02:06it's darkened and it's more technical in its design but I'm not sure that I'm in love with it. I
02:11actually really like the signature on the Mark 8. The R keeps is quad tailpipes of course and if you
02:16choose the Warmanauer edition you'll get that titanium Akrapovic exhaust and it sounds pretty
02:21special. Color choices stay the same, you get that beautiful blue, white and black. It would be great
02:26to see some special one-off colors in the future but there's none in plans right now. Where the GTI
02:32looks more cheeky and charming, the R looks like it means business. Less extroverted than a Civic Type R
02:37and more premium than a GR Corolla. I think it's refined aggression and in typical Volkswagen fashion,
02:43it doesn't scream, it whispers and then it blasts past you at 270 kilometers an hour. Let's take a look
02:49at the interior.
03:05So here we are inside the new Golf R. It's actually a really nice place to see. We've driven a
03:10couple
03:10hundred Ks today. As part of the launch event we drove, we actually started in Orange then we drove all
03:16the best
03:17roads in sort of rural New South Wales to Katoomba last night and we rolled into Sydney Motorsport Park
03:23here this morning. Yesterday's drive as you're about to see in the in-car video. It was extremely wet,
03:28there were potholes everywhere but the car did quite well. What do I think of the interior? Well I've
03:33actually just been driving around the GTI for a while and there are some key differences. Steering
03:38wheel is completely different as the capacitive touch sort of hidden buttons until you turn the car on,
03:44backlit buttons if you will. And obviously there's a lot more blue instead of red. Everything that's
03:48red in the GTI gets pretty much replaced by blue. Nappa leather seats, they're standard in Australia.
03:53What's not standard is the roof. You also get Harman Kardon and a whole bunch of other goodies that you
03:58wouldn't usually get in a Golf R. Mostly exterior stuff on the outside because of the performance package
04:03like the rear wing. It gives you everything you want from a luxury premium sedan, say your Audi A4s,
04:10but in a fast hot hatch. So here's that 12.9 inch touchscreen infotainment system. You've got Apple
04:16CarPlay etc etc. The list goes on. These things now light up at night. They're still sliders to adjust
04:23your temperature controls which I do not love. I do wish there was a dial of some sort. This navigation
04:29menu did take me a little bit of time to get used to and if I hadn't have driven the
04:34GTI just before
04:34this it probably would have taken me even longer. You basically access all your apps up here in the
04:39top right including your vehicle and your drive mode. So you're really only going to be hitting the
04:44drive mode and that one to get to your apps. But once your phone's connected you've got Apple CarPlay
04:49running on the full screen or your Android Auto through the app connect. They don't really touch a
04:52lot of this stuff anyway. You do still have these sort of hard touch buttons at the top which I
04:58like.
04:58The mode button, this is the one you're going to use the most. When you have your CarPlay running you're
05:02only going to
05:02really want to use the mode button but here's how you select your drive modes. You can set up individual
05:06race. There's a special Nurburgring mode and while we're here I'll point out that the auto start stop
05:11can be turned off at a hard button at the top too. You've got this which is the parking menu.
05:15If you
05:15hit that up comes your parking assistant so it can park itself but who really uses that. Jump into camera
05:22there's your camera. So it does have some different views here. Here's down the side of the car but it's
05:27the front one and the back one and the side one. That's pretty much it and honestly I'm happy with
05:32it.
05:32Not too hard to use. Generally it's a thumbs up for me. In front of the driver well here's a
05:37close
05:37look at that steering wheel. So you see these are backlit driver controls over here for that screen.
05:44So digital instrument cluster in front of you. Perfectly fine. Readouts are great. There's a whole
05:49bunch of different views you can cycle through. Things that I don't love so much about the interior.
05:55Lot of scratchy black plastic. I don't love that. I didn't love it in the GTI and I thought
06:00yeah maybe the R won't have it but it does. Extremely scratchy plastic. So you wouldn't expect
06:08a whole lot of space in the back of a hatchback and I'm six foot tall. That's basically negative
06:14knee room there. My knees are going in the back of the driver's seat in front of me. Shall we
06:17have a
06:17quick squeeze in the boot before we take it for a drive? So the Golf's always been super practical
06:24and to be honest I don't think many people carry passengers in the back. So I'm kind of here for
06:29a little bit less leg rim and more boot space and there is same as the GTI or very similar.
06:35I easily
06:36got two carry-on bags in here. You could do a check bag and a carry-on bag. You don't
06:41get under
06:43floor storage because you do have this subwoofer back here
06:47as part of the Harman card but look it's still the king of practicality.
07:11So I've had the very unique chance to actually spend time driving the new Golf GTI and then jump
07:19straight into this Golf R. For the last couple of days I've been hanging out in rural New South
07:24Wales in Mudgee in the new Mark 8.5 GTI. So I'm probably one of the only people on this
07:28trip that's
07:29had the chance to drive both and I would confidently say I'm the only person that's had a chance
07:33to drive both back to back. So what are the differences? Well the first difference is the
07:38steering wheel. It's the thing I'm holding. It has capacitive touch buttons. I thought they went away
07:43from that but it must have just been on the GTI because that has physical buttons and I don't really
07:48mine too much. I'm not one of those people that goes wow I had capacitive touch buttons. It doesn't
07:53really bug me all that much. Then the next thing I notice is the suspension. Now I don't know what
08:02they've done to the dampers in this car. I was cruising it around in comfort mode in the GTI. I'm
08:07cruising
08:07around here right now and it's just more comfortable simply put. I don't know what they've done to the
08:14embers but the primary ride is just more composed. It's more dialed in. It doesn't get upset as much
08:19over bumps and they were riding on the same size wheels 90 inch. The next thing you notice is the
08:24performance. It has a significant power advantage over the GTI on top of the fact that it's all-wheel
08:31drive. So it has an EA 888 engine. The same one that's been around for a long time now. It's
08:36just the
08:37latest revision and the power bump is 10 kilowatts. So you're looking at 245 kilowatts of power now in the
08:43brand new Mark 8.5. Zero to 100 kilometers an hour, 4.6 seconds. So it's quick. It's not at
08:48hyperhatch levels. It's not you're going to be RS3s or your A45s but it's certainly up there when
08:54you're looking at Civic Type R's, A35s and those sort of things. GR Corollas, etc. There's a really
09:01cool display you can bring up on this digital instrument cluster in front of me. It shows you
09:06the torque split between the front and the rear axle and also the torque split between those two rear
09:11wheels because it can send 50% of the power to the rear axle and then it can send 100
09:15% of that 50%
09:16to each wheel. So it can overdrive the outside wheel to push through a corner.
09:21It can even overdrive the inside wheel if you want to have it step out a little bit and initiate
09:26some of that glidey oversteer. They've also introduced their version of anti-lag. So when you
09:32roll into a corner, let off the accelerator, then jump back on it, it gives you an instant boost of
09:38power.
09:38There's no sort of turbo lag to be heard of. When you put this car on paper compared to its
09:44main
09:44competitors, it stands out for a lot of reasons. It's a lot cheaper than the A35s, despite it
09:49offering pretty much the very similar in terms of performance. In fact, this one is probably edging
09:56the A35 in terms of performance. It won't be as sharp as that Civic Type R but it also rides
10:02a whole lot
10:02better on these back roads. I think compared to the GR Corolla, that car's definitely leaning more
10:07into track. This is and always has been the executive's choice when it comes to hatches
10:12and it still is. It just has a little bit more power. So how would I sum up the driving
10:16experience
10:17of the Golf R? I wouldn't say that the GTI is necessarily more pure. I think this is pure as
10:22far
10:22as hot hatches go in the modern age. I love the GTI. I love the front end, the nature of
10:28that, the way
10:29it sort of drags itself out of corners. You can go flat a lot more often because it doesn't have
10:34quite
10:34as much power. You can probably have more fun on some back roads in the GTI because it's not going
10:40to be
10:40going absolutely berserk on you like this thing would, but ultimately this is a significantly
10:45more capable vehicle because of the all-wheel drive system, but more importantly because they're
10:49really differential. The criticism of the Golf R in the past has been, you know, this car isn't all
10:53that much fun to drive, but I think it's pretty darn fun. And to prove it, we're going to take
10:59it to the racetrack.
11:14So here we are on track in the brand new Mark 8.5 Golf R. We've already cut a few
11:19laps today with
11:20helmets on, brakes no fade, the diff very impressive, but I thought I'd give you guys a quick lap here,
11:25so talk about it. For one, the gearbox. It's slightly remapped in the Sport Plus mode when you're in
11:33Nurburgring mode, so there's a bunch of different drive modes in this car, but Nurburgring is the one
11:38that they want us to be trying out and it's easy to see why. In Sport Plus, when you're in
11:42Nurburgring,
11:43it will keep the gear held through the corners, which is quite impressive and it knows exactly
11:48what to do. It is very PDK-esque in the gearbox. Fun. It's so cool. Executive Express, you can buy
11:55for $70,000, drive it to work every single day and then when you get the call from Volkswagen, you
12:00can come
12:00hang out, take it on the track. Not bad. So that is the new Mark 8.5 Golf R we've
12:13seen around the exterior
12:14of the car, some of the changes on the interior, taking it for a drive including some track time
12:18and it's really proven itself as the grandfather really of the hot hatches. If you guys like this
12:23video, go down below and smash that like button. While you're there, hit the subscribe, let me know
12:28what you think about it down in the comments section. That's the new Mark 8.5 Golf R.
12:58you