Volkswagen Polo R prototype 2014 Review

Volkswagen Polo R prototype

That’s about to change and this little cracker is the first Polo R to officially 'unofficially' break cover.

Maybe they won the championship a year too early and the matching road car wasn’t ready, which led to the thrown-together, crudely horrid and largely unlovable front-drive Polo R WRC from last year. This one is all-wheel drive, runs a turbocharged 2.0-litre engine and, even as a prototype, feels very well sorted.

It should be. This might well signal a broad range of R models from Volkswagen that will quickly see the Polo and the Beetle joining the Golf in the R ranks, with the Scirocco and the Passat to follow soon after. And it could be on sale as soon as the third quarter of this year.

Granted, our first drive of the probable Polo R was on the ice of northern Sweden during the visit of the Volkswagen Group’s senior management flying circus on its six-weekly group test prototype shootout, so it’s not exactly a realistic road test, but the initial signs are promising.

It’s a quick little thing, even on baby spikes on a frozen lake. Volkswagen insists it’s a sub-six second sprinter to 100km/h and that feels about right. With only 30 horses more, Seat’s upcoming Leon Cupra is touted as a 5.7-second proposition, even with more heft.

It gets a near-190kW version of the EA888 2.0-litre motor sitting across the front axles, which means it gets direct fuel injection, variable valve timing and a healthily boosted turbocharger. It’s not a high revver, though, peaking in the mid sixes, and can just as easily be driven on a torque curve which Volkswagen set at 350Nm, peaking below 2000rpm.

It mates this to a six-speed dual-clutch transmission, then turns the drive north-south to twist through the same multi-plate Haldex V centre differential as fitted to the larger, more powerful Golf R.

Putting a differential under the rear end demanded some serious engineering changes, the biggest of which was tossing out the Polo’s torsion beam rear suspension system and replacing it with a four-link independent system.

The Polo R will be essentially the same car as the Audi S1 (which will be launched in March), right down to its centre diff, transmission, engine and suspension hardware. The biggest differences are that the Polo R will run a family Polo dash, not the expensively-trimmed Audi A1 interior, and will have a full-steel body where the Audi has more aluminium in its front end.

The Polo R is yet another sign of Volkswagen’s encroachment into established Audi territory and the car, developed in conjunction with the S1, is yet another headache for Audi’s technical boss, Ulrich Hackenberg, that he created for himself before he moved across from Volkswagen last year.

The threat is a real one, because the Polo R prototype feels more agile than the standard Polo without feeling to lose any of its trademark solidity and hefty large-car ride, stance and feel.

It has so much traction that the throttle can be stomped on, even on ice, and you can expect the car to track straight and true, even with the steering wheel left to its own devices. It’s also so agile that it can be made to change direction crisply with a small wrist flick on the steering and a little lift off to transfer the weight. No wonder Sebastien Ogier makes the WRC look easy (we know, we know, they have nothing to do with rally cars).

Then, when the hard work is done, it settles easily into long slides more reminiscent of long-wheelbase cars, not a hot hatch.

It’s a car happy enough to be cornered with gentle understeer or magnificent oversteer, depending on the driver’s mood, though gentle understeer is sure to be the stance it chooses on dry tarmac. Still, a diff at the rear end doesn’t hurt its weight distribution, which doesn’t hurt its cornering poise.

The engine isn’t just powerful, with 190kW at 6000rpm, but it’s strong in the mid and low revs as well. There is 350Nm here and it peaks at 1750rpm, then stays at that level until 5300rpm. That means the Polo R goes whenever you want it to, regardless of what gear you’re in.

It also gets paddle shifters on the steering wheel as part of the package, and is almost certain to get a variant of the Golf R’s four-mode (Normal, Eco, Race and Individual) driving settings, too.

It rides very well and the interior of our prototype, while not representative of what the road car will be like to justify its higher price tag, doesn’t ask for any compromises over the standard car.

One compromise Volkswagen isn’t talking about is weight, but there’s more than enough power and grip to offset another 50kg, if that’s how much heavier it ends up being.

2015 Volkswagen Polo R pricing and specifications:
Price: TBA – but a chunk beneath the Golf GTi
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol
Output: 190kW/350Nm
Transmission: Six-speed DSG
Fuel: TBA
CO2: TBA
Safety Rating: Five-star ANCAP (based on production model)

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