29 Sep 05
Buyers with £945 to spare can specify a set of racy-looking bucket seats, but the standard R32-embossed chairs are plenty good enough. The logo also makes an appearance on the thick-rimmed, perforated leather steering wheel, behind which a set of blue-lit transparent needles sweeps across the instrument stack.
It's the milled aluminium strip that runs along the dash, door panels and surrounds the gear lever that grabs your attention first, however. VW is keen to point out that, like DSG, it's also used in that other recently launched four-wheel-drive performance car, the Bugatti Veyron.
At a starting price of £23,745 in three-door guise (the five-door costs £500 extra), the R32 costs around a fraction of a Veyron. A bargain, then? Not quite. It's £4,000 more than a GTI, and doesn't enjoy the same cult status on a global scale. But it comes with all the toys - bi-xenon headlamps, dual-zone climate control, heated front seats and a 10-speaker hi-fi - and is quite simply the better driver's car in every respect.
It's just a shame it doesn't look a bit more aftermarket.
