http://www.autoblog.com/2008/06/23/in-t ... wagen-r32/
In the Autoblog Garage: 2008 Volkswagen R32
Posted Jun 23rd 2008 12:00PM by Chris Tutor
Filed under: Garage, Sports/GTs, Hatchbacks, Volkswagen, Special/Limited Editions
The scraping as I pulled into the church parking lot worried me. I'd only had one of the rarest of VeeDubs for a few hours and I might have already nicked it. An unholy shame for sure, since for two weeks I had looked forward to blasting down I-20 at the wheel of an R32. For two weeks I had wondered how loud a redlined VR6 could wail. But for the last two hours I'd done nothing but get lost in Atlanta gridlock trying to set my destination on the car's in-dash nav.
Pulling in the First Pentecostal parking lot's steep entrance was a decision made in frustration and impatience, one made easier with the R32's light, quick steering and massive acceleration. But shelter from the kamikaze traffic I expected, undercarriage damage I did not. A quick inspection revealed nothing of importance had suffered trauma. The 18-inch wheels and their low-profile Continentals looked fine. The rear differential seemed unscathed. The bumper's plastic valance was unharmed and couldn't have made the metal-on-concrete sound I'd heard anyway.
No, that noise could only have come from my Deep Blue R32's chrome-plated testicles. Well, that's what the two center-mounted exhaust pipes resemble, and, of course, they're huge! Volkswagen endows its high-performance Rabbit with big, low-hanging man-ornaments and isn't ashamed to dangle 'em right out there for the world to see. And for church parking lot entrances to kiss.
Rush-hour suburbanites still crawled slowly and noisily through Hotlanta's streets. Escape was futile. Luckily I knew a superb little liquor store only a few blocks away virtually swimming in premium beer. I touched the R32's dash-mounted screen expecting an iPhone-like experience but, of course, got no response. Instead I input Green's Beverages' address into the nav one character at a time with the knob-turn-push-turn-push method. Input is slow but the system found my route fast. I put the R32's Dual Synchronous Gearbox into drive with the leather and polished-aluminum shifter and carefully made my exodus.
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It's scary-quick at first, but oh so much fun.
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Otherwise, the two sound outlets below the rear bumper are all you'll need for aural entertainment. That noise is ever-present with the windows closed, and conversation-killing with them open.
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A wet, deserted exit ramp provided an impromptu skidpad test for VW's 4-motion all-wheel-drive system. I took it much faster than I would have in my own car, and my confidence in German engineering wasn't betrayed. No sliding. No squealing. No drama. I'm breathless at the bottom, amazed at the prowess of this thing, disappointed I didn't push it harder.
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From a distance, I pointed the car out to a fellow gearhead who said, "Oh, you're driving a Rabbit this week." To which I should have replied, "That's no ordinary Rabbit! That's the most bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!" Once I said the name R32, he perked up with interest, of course, and asked for a ride. The econo-car anonymity got to be so annoying that I actually thought about printing up fliers to hand out to people who weren't fawning all over the thing. "It costs almost $35,430!"
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By its very nature, the 250-hp 6-cylinder engine should be a nasty little gas hog. Compared to a regular Rabbit, it is. Over the course of our week, we ran 35.3 gallons of premium through our car while driving 657 miles. That's an average of 18.6 mpg (just below EPA's estimate of 20.5). And no, I was not driving like your grandmother. We didn't try to play Michael Scumacher, but then we weren't taking it easy, either. If you can afford a pretty little plaything like the R32, you probably won't mind gas mileage like this.
Sure, there are more powerful, flashier cars out there for the money, but what the R32 lacks in speed, it makes up for in style. If you want to be the Bandit of the suburbs, the R32 could be your modern day T/A.
. i'll take a gti mkv plzkthx.
