Tag Archives: VW Golf R

Volkswagen Golf 7 R

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Volkswagen-Golf_R_2014Being a fan of hot hatches, I have been looking forward to that little one for quite some time now. The R is back with some pretty impressive figures. Starting with the engine obviously. The all-wheel drive Golf now has 296hp, compared to the 267hp of the Golf 6 R. The 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine sends all of its 300 ponies to the all-wheel drive system (With a clever XDS+ electronic diff lock on both axles) through a six-speed DSG allowing it to burn the 0-100km/h in just 4.9sec. That is M135i performance! Even though, the R is still far behind the performance of the A45 AMG and its 360hp. (Check the full review of the A45AMG by clicking here). Other than that, for the first time since the Mk5 Golf, the ESC has a Race setting, which allows you to turn the stability control completely off. There’s a new ‘progressive steering’, which is more responsive and an optional Dynamic Chassis Control to switch between Comfort, Normal and Sport modes.

Volkswagen-Golf_R_2014 RearThe new R is 5 mm lower than the new MK7 GTI and sits on 18 inch alloy wheels which look pretty beast in the EVO Frankfurt review here attached (You are welcome EVO). The pair of centrally mounted exhausts has been dumbed for a twin-oval chrome-tipped versions at each side of the car remind us of Audi’s S models. Hope that change won’t affect the exhaust note negatively. The Tail lights are smoked, like on every R model. All in all, even though looking at the first snapshots, I didn’t really like the new MK7 design, seeing the car in live made me change my mind. It is a great update over the MK6. The rear tail lights look really good specially at night. The interior is neat, clear and tidy as usual. With the price of the MK7 GTI at around 50,000$ in Lebanon, the R is expected to be launched with a starting price at around 65,000$ which is quite expensive for a hatch. But when you consider that an A250 with its front wheel drive, 210hp engine costs approximately the same price, the R suddenly becomes a bargain! Just wish I could put my hands on one of these ASAP and be the “lucky one” like in the new commercial attached below.

Breakfast in Douma with UPsolute Lebanon

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UPsolute hot hatch gatheringOn Sunday September the 1st, TheAdsGarage met up with the UPsolute team for a roadtrip to Douma. The meeting point was the UPsolute Lebanon headquarters located just before the Volkswagen showroom on the Dawra highway. Around 30 hot hatches were reunited there, at 7am, ready to hit the streets. After some gathering pictures, we went straight to Batroun and then climbed to Douma. The road was just perfect, a great way to test our UPsoluted cars. Reaching Douma we met up with a couple of bikers who showed us what they can do. We then had breakfast and went back home. You can check all the pictures of the event by clicking here. Stay tuned the video of the event will be up very soon 🙂

Three BikesThe trip was UPsolutely great! I had a blast. The UPsolute Lebanon Team is doing a great job in order to try and unify all their UPsoluted transformed cars allowing them to share the knowledge and the experience they have with their cars. The good thing about UPsolute (Tuning company from Austria) is that they work on a custom map for each car and not a single map for each car model like REVO or APR (Tuning companies from US). This results in a map that is safer and more adapted to your car. UPsolute Lebanon has worked on around 200+ satisfied cars ranging from Stage1 to Stage 4, mostly VW GTI, R32 and GolfR. I advise everyone of you GTI owners to upgrade your cars, at least to stage 1, it gives around 40hp just by the click of a button. The car becomes sportier and more responsive while keeping fuel economy not very different from stock. Feel free to check the UPsolute Lebanon Facebook page for more details. Thank you very much for the invite guys! See you soon and keep up the good work!