Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR 2019 Review — International

There’s an excellent chance that most people who hear the be-dotted Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR blast past won’t even know what TCR stands for.

They’ve had nearly 45 years to get used to the GTI part, but TCR (Touring Car Racing) is a more recent construct.

And it won’t be here for long, with the GTI TCR assigned as a run-out special for the badge before the all-new Volkswagen Golf Mk8 debuts in Europe in September.

The Volkswagen Group loves the affordable TCR front-drive racing concept that’s swept the world because it can knock out Audi, Volkswagen, Seat and Skoda versions in batches on a single production line. Also, its buzzing brands tend to win a lot.

The German giant’s love for the TCR category has now cranked out a street TCR as a farewell blast to the Golf Mk 7.5 and it looks like a really hot, really angry Golf GTI.

That’s mostly because it is, actually, a really hot, really angry Golf GTI and the best news it will be available in Australia later this year, before the Mk8 Golf arrives here in 2020.

Now into the last six months of its seventh generation, the Volkswagen Golf GTI runs a peak of 180kW of power (in Performance guise, which is now standard Down Under) and has 350Nm of torque from its EA888 2.0-litre turbo four-cylinder.

Impressive, but not enough for TCR work, and the be-spoilered battle wagon rips that up to 213kW of power and 400Nm of torque and blasts to 100km/h in 5.6 seconds.

The engine, ripped out of the GTI Clubsport Edition 40 from 2017, scores new engine management software, two extra radiators and a particulate filter.

Those are the kinds of numbers that are going to shock Honda Civic Type R, Renault Megane S and Hyundai i30N drivers, who have come to look upon the GTI as a fraction soft.

The TCR is the opposite of soft. Volkswagen has turned its front-drive chariot into a vicious little terrier, something that begs for more speed and almost demands to be thrown harder into corners.

The most noticeable visual impact is made by the scattered hexagons along the side (they’re a delete option, fortunately), the chunkier nose and the extended roof spoiler. There are carbon-fibre mirror caps and a longer front splitter, with a set of matt-black alloys, too.

There are new microfiber-trimmed seats inside, plus a flat-bottomed steering wheel with perforations on the leather around the spokes, with lots of red hints.

It is, as it always has been, a convincing interior, with its huge digital instrument cluster and its matching, large infotainment screen and a perfect driving position.

Just about the only way you can tell that this is an interior nearing the end of its generational cycle is that the rear-seat legroom has fallen behind some of its rivals.

For all of its wilder looks, it’s still a shock when you turn it on via the Start button. It’s savagely loud.

It’s ‘half an Audi R8 V10’ loud, it has similar depth and it makes an immediate vocal link to the TCR race car (I’ve driven both. The racing car is louder but not by as much as you’d think).

The start-up is crisp and sharp, every blip on the throttle is met with a dare to do it again and it’s so raucous that you almost expect to hear and feel the race car’s raw metallic ‘clunk’ as first gear hits home.

But the Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR doesn’t do that, because gear changing is done via a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission that’s a paragon of good manners.

It almost makes you wonder whether they might have done the car a favour by, I dunno, artificially thumping up the shifts more in its Sport mode (like Lamborghini did with the original Aventador).

Because where the GTI has always walked a perfect tightrope between performance and daily comfort and usability, the TCR does not.

It’s incredibly firm and sometimes delivers a brutally honest interpretation of the road. Brutally. Especially on vertical upward bump strikes.

Now, there’s good and bad in that. Sure, it lets you feel the road like no Golf before it and it bites down on the surface like a junior racing car on a smooth road.

It also corners flat, with virtually no body roll to speak of, and it’s unshakeable through faster corners. The body control is also brilliant.

The downside is that it doesn’t perform anywhere near its best on broken or even moderately imperfect surfaces and wet weather will see the traction-control light strobing on the digital instrument cluster a full football field after a corner finishes.

There’s something inherently good and right about the way the suspension morphs from hard to tautly controlled as soon as you punch some energy through it.

It helps that it scores the electronic locking eDiff to manage drive to the front, plus forged 18-inch alloys. The suspension is passive, with no fancy adaptive damping, and it essentially takes the current GTI performance dampers and re-valves them, firming them up and slipping them inside shorter, stiffer springs that pull the body 5mm nearer the road.

You don’t have to stop there, though, and it’s unlikely that many people will.

The first upgrade delivers 19-inch alloys and adaptive dampers, while a larger cheque again delivers different 19-inch alloys and the limpet-like Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres, plus it shifts the speed limiter from 250km/h to 260km/h.

The body control is exemplary under hard cornering or a series of direction changes and the faster you tip it in to bends, the more it feels composed rather than jittery and the rebound damping is particularly sweet when things are loaded up...

... To a point, anyway. Beyond that point, the firmness is too firm to pronounced to get the best out of the chassis, but it’s only a hindrance, not a curse.

It won’t spit you off the road, but it will annoy you to the point where you might catch yourself dreaming of this powertrain in a stock GTI chassis.

There are worst parts to the handling package that even the mighty four-piston front brakes can’t cover up, and they’re all places where the Golf Mk 7.5 is beginning to show its age.

And they almost all relate to the steering. It’s light and not particularly communicative, even under extreme pressure. And the rack feels very slow for a proper hot bit of kit.

Also, for all its stability and ability to carry speed through the corners, it never feels brilliantly agile.

It’s actually more pronounced in town than it is in the twisty bits, where its turning circle seems enormous compared to even the huge Touareg (it isn’t, it’s just that the SUV’s all-wheel steering makes it fit into parks or do U-turns in ways that don’t seem possible).

But the powertrain is almost beyond reproach, though some people will inevitably prefer a six-speed manual to the standard seven-speed dual-clutch transmission.

We say almost behind reproach because it doesn’t feel special over the sprint to 15-20km/h, while the revs are building in that hard-pressed little four-pot.

And then, Lordy, doesn’t it get stroppy. All hell breaks loose beyond about 1500rpm, because that’s when the TCR’s motor starts to spin with genuine freedom and fury.

The performance spread is admirably broad, but with all the oars out and ramming speed approaching, it just wants to pull and pull and pull and it’s always a shock when the transmission changes up to another gear. It always feels like the engine wants to spin harder.

It’s not spinning for the sake of it, either, because there’s real performance to go with the noise and there’s a charming pop and crackle on the downshifts.

Should you buy it? Well, I would (and I’d definitely spec it with adaptive damping), but I’m not everybody. And, seriously, it depends on the type of roads around your base garage.

But that little engine is absolutely wicked.

How much does the 2019 Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR cost?
Price: $55,000 (approx)
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol
Output: 211kW/400Nm
Transmission: Seven-speed dual-clutch
Fuel: 6.7L/100km
CO2: 151g/km
Safety rating: TBC