ELLMAU, Austria — During a related Volkswagen drive event here in the Austrian Alps, VW spokespeople from Wolfsburg offered up a tantalizing bit of news: The company will establish its own new performance division, R GmbH. The official announcement will be made at the 2010 Geneva Auto Show in March.
As an executive told Inside Line: "BMW has its M, Mercedes has AMG, and our sibling Audi has Quattro. This new R division will be our Quattro."
The new R GmbH is an expanded version of the Europe-market VW Individual, an entity that offers a vast catalogue of sporty personalization items for customers' standard VW cars. For example, the CC R-Line was recently announced and was displayed at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show as a formal set offering within the CC lineup.
So far, North America has seen bits and pieces of Individual division R-Line offerings through the VW GearStore or in a few rare special editions. Although the company was gauging interest by showing the CC R-Line at Detroit, it has not said whether it will introduce it in the U.S. market.
The R division of the Wolfsburg factory is to begin creating from-the-ground-up R versions of every appropriate model in the VW showroom, as recently seen on the 266-horsepower Golf R with 4Motion and the 261-hp Scirocco R. The Golf R, at least, is rumored to be heading to North America in early 2011.
Inside Line says: Technically now that it's the world's number-one car manufacturing group (thanks to a Suzuki majority stake), VW's leaders are thinking even bigger thoughts. Hope they think of the U.S., too. — Matt Davis, Correspondent
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grfa says:
12:58 PM, 01/29/2010
I'm sorry, but hasn't Volvo been using the R thing a lot longer than VW? There have been R-Sport for some 30+ years as its performance arm. Something tells me there will be some bickering between the two.
delraylocal says:
09:04 AM, 01/28/2010
This car looks awesome, however I know that we will only get the 2 door in the states which totally blows. In my opinion the 2 door version looks weird because the way the d-pillar window curves upward instead of following that nice straight line like the 4 door.
Also, the 2 door looks to much like a "kids" car while the 4 door one looks more mature and "adult."
It is their way of forcing me to upgrade to the audi a3, which I don't really want.
VW- I want a 4 door Golf R!!!
thaitanium15 says:
07:37 PM, 01/27/2010
Ach so, jetzt verstehe ich. Thanks for clarifying that guys!
audisport says:
02:01 PM, 01/27/2010
Oh, and S-line is just an Audi appearance package that gives the look of the S and RS vehicles without the performance upgrades.
audisport says:
01:59 PM, 01/27/2010
Quattro GmbH is the name of Audi's performance arm. Quattro is also the name of their all wheel drive system. Two different things, same name.
Quattro GmbH along with Audi develops the S and RS vehicle, like the S4, RS4 and the R8.
GmbH is just a legal entity for the business in Germany. It's similar to an American Corporation. So esentially, VW is spinning off R as it's own seperate company.
ChromieD says:
12:12 PM, 01/27/2010
In German corporate culture, when you add the "GmbH", it means you're now a bigshot company within the company. Audi does have S-Line, yes, and that'll continue, but it's not really a formal GmbH-style group making burning-hot versions of all Audis. All VW is doing is taking its existing R-Line catalogue and ratcheting it up to include fully built BMW M- or Mercedes AMG-style barnburners, too.
All of Audi's hottest stuff - from catalogue parts through the R8 and RS cars - are handled by Quattro GmbH. The all-wheel drive is just a technical component available to the whole lineup of Audis, but the Quattro name took on so much marketable life of its own that they went and GmbH-ed it a few years back.
thaitanium15 says:
11:45 AM, 01/27/2010
I thought Audi had S-Line?.. Isn't Quattro just their AWD system? Someone please explain. I'm way out of my element when it comes to Audi.
luedriver says:
09:28 AM, 01/27/2010
'nuff said....
bring on the RALLY CARS....!!!!