Das Heck: All-terrain VW Golf R spotted at Green Hell

A mysterious VW Golf R prototype was spotted testing on the Nürburgring this week flaunting a widebody kit, elevated ride height, long-travel suspension and an extended fuel filler.

There hasn’t been any eye-catching trademark action to further the plot, and VW, like most brands, has done nothing to help in that regard, but there are a couple of viable possibilities – we’ll just have to wait and see which one ends up coming to fruition.

The first and most obvious theory is that VW will muscle-in on the emerging all-terrain performance passenger car niche Porsche, Lamborghini and Ford have thus far cracked open, albeit at a far more attainable price point.

An all-terrain Golf R wouldn’t be too harder creation to wrangle into production seeing as the current model shares its MQB Evo underpinnings with the Cupra Formentor VZx crossover.

Missing from the all-terrain ensemble however are the usually obligatory knobby tyres – the hustling prototype is clearly wearing summer-focused or full-on performance rubber in the revealing video captured and published by the statesidesupercars YouTube channel.

This detail, combined with the fact the car isn’t wearing even a slither of camouflage, raises a subsequent question: is this really an all-terrain Golf R, in which case it’s virtually ready for production, or is it an elaborate disguise for another vehicle?

Carmakers can be devious when disguising and hiding their new product and so there’ a half decent chance that what we’re looking at isn’t a Golf R at all, but rather something like a next-generation and long overdue Audi SQ3, or some other all-new product we’re yet to see or hear of.

Both situations are plausible, and it’s no secret the MQB Evo platform is widely used and immensely versatile, so it will be interesting to see what the VW Group is cooking up.

If it is indeed an all-terrain Golf R, we hope the bulky fuel filler is sorted out and made more elegant because the current set-up shown in the video is rather ghastly and corrupts the otherwise enticing design of the raised and widened hot hatch.

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