News Source: topspeed.com

Like all hot hatchbacks,  the Golf R  is not an old person’s car. While the 2016 model slated for arrival in the U.S. will be equipped with four doors, it’s still the fastest and most powerful Golf ever sold to the American public. It’s a turbocharged, all-wheel-drive speed bubble. It’s a bullet with sport suspension, 18-inch wheels, and tight, bolstered seats. The tires are thin, the brakes are grabby, and the exhaust burbles and pops. It’s a pumped up, track-oriented performance special. Obviously, this is a complicated machine aimed at a younger crowd.

Grip and power are good, and the Golf R practically oozes with both these attributes. But the car for tomorrow, the kind of vehicle that anyone under 30 might want, needs more than a collection of high-performance statistics. To effectively reach the new consumer, a car needs connectivity, innovative infotainment, and the latest interior technology. For a growing number of customers, it’s the cabin gadgetry that either makes or breaks a car sale.

With this in mind, Volkswagen  is using the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show as a springboard to unveil the Golf R Touch, which integrates a huge variety of forward-thinking user-interface technology to enhance the experience for both passengers and the driver.

While the rest of the vehicle is unchanged from a production Golf R, it’s fascinating to see the direction VW wants to take in a bid to stay at the forefront of cabin tech. Say goodbye to buttons and switches- in their stead, you’ll find screens, haptic feedback, and gesture control. It looks complex, but if you’re the kind of person who can smell free public WiFi from a mile away, you should feel right at home.

Beyond a unique red-and-grey color scheme and stylish, new wheels, the rest of the exterior on the R Touch is essentially unchanged. Based on the seventh-generation Golf, which began production last year, the new R comes with larger front air inlets and quad exhaust tips in the back. Placed alongside its commuter siblings, the R looks lower and meaner thanks to a suspension drop and larger-diameter aluminum wheels. Like Golfs of old, the design is simple and chiseled, with the trailing edges creased slightly to give it a sporty feel, most notably in the rear with a lip across the hatch roofline and in the lower diffuser.

Beyond perhaps a lack of boldness, it’s hard to fault the Golf for the way it looks. It’s clean and well proportioned; attributes that helped propel the new Golf to a spot on TopSpeed’s new car top picks list for 2014.

This is where things get really interesting. The cabin in the Touch received a major upgrade over the singular navigation screen found in the stock Golf R. The Touch is VW’s preview for future interior technologies, with a focus on the elimination of traditional mechanical buttons and switches. That means there are three total screens for the user interface, including a 12.8-inch main screen mounted in the center console, an eight-inch control screen mounted right below it, and a 12.3-inch active info display taking the place of a traditional instrument cluster behind the steering wheel.

The two larger screens are fully customizable, with a variety of information and images available to mix and match depending on preference and need. These screens are also touch-enabled, with proximity sensors embedded nearby to aid use. The 12.8-inch main screen has what’s known as a multi-touch slider that lets users control parameters like music volume, fader, and balance through a combination of different numbers of fingers. The ambient lighting is also adjustable throughout the cabin, tailoring the hue to match your tastes.

The eight-inch control screen incorporates haptic feedback, giving a sense of “clickiness” that will help keep the driver’s attention on the road while he or she makes a selection. All these different control features can also be made via gesture command, whereby a roof-mounted camera is used to recognize hand movements, turning a variety of waving into discrete actions.

We can only assume the drivetrain for Golf R Touch remains unchanged, but that’s okay. Even in stock form, the Golf R is very capable. Under the hood is a 2.0-liter, turbocharged inline-four with 290 horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque pumping through 4MOTION permanent all-wheel-drive. There are two transmissions to choose from, including a six-speed manual or six-speed auto DSG, with the slush box rendering a slightly improved 0-to-60 time of 4.9 seconds. Sitting behind the aluminum alloys are high-performance brakes, with rotors measuring in at 13.4 inches and 12.2 inches in the front and rear, respectively. A new suspension yields max grip, with struts up front and a multi-link in the back, while pilots can choose between several different driving modes, including “Comfort," “Normal," “Sport," and “Race." A fully loaded Golf R is just a sneeze below $40,000, and I’d wager that the new screens, gesture control, and other goodies found on the Touch would add up to one helluva option box. Should VW pull the trigger on offering such a package, I wouldn’t be surprised if it added another $7,000 to the MSRP, making for one very pricey Golf. Of course, that’s just speculation. Over time, if this tech gains in popularity, the price should eventually fall.