VW Golf R By Manhart Is A Stealthy Hot Hatch With 450 Horsepower

Many reports have been written about how Volkswagen intended to take the Golf R to unprecedented levels of power by introducing an R400 / R420, but ultimately decided to axe the project as a victim of the costly Dieselgate. You could say the folks from Wolfsburg should introduce a beefier version of their all-wheel-drive hot hatch seeing as how the GTI in the Clubsport S flavor perfectly matched its output. While that was a limited-run affair, a new Golf GTI TCR is coming with close to 300 hp, thus getting dangerously close to the mighty R.

VW will address the narrowing power gap with a new Golf R expected to push out 330 hp, but what if some people want more? Yes, there's always the Audi RS3 Sportback with its glorious five-cylinder engine, but it's also significantly more expensive. This is where the tuners at Manhart come into play as they've just built a 450-hp variant of the Golf R.

Many reports have been written about how Volkswagen intended to take the Golf R to unprecedented levels of power by introducing an R400 / R420, but ultimately decided to axe the project as a victim of the costly Dieselgate. You could say the folks from Wolfsburg should introduce a beefier version of their all-wheel-drive hot hatch seeing as how the GTI in the Clubsport S flavor perfectly matched its output. While that was a limited-run affair, a new Golf GTI TCR is coming with close to 300 hp, thus getting dangerously close to the mighty R.

VW will address the narrowing power gap with a new Golf R expected to push out 330 hp, but what if some people want more? Yes, there's always the Audi RS3 Sportback with its glorious five-cylinder engine, but it's also significantly more expensive. This is where the tuners at Manhart come into play as they've just built a 450-hp variant of the Golf R.

After remapping the engine's ECU, Manhart has managed to squeeze out 450 hp and a healthy 500 Newton-meters (369 pound-feet) of torque from the familiar 2.0 TSI. The tuners also fiddled with the engine's soundtrack by modifying the exhaust to accommodate a new downpipe. While it's not the five-cylinder Golf R that VW wanted to make before being turned down by Audi, it should still offer a significant performance boost over the standard car.

The decal applied onto the rear pillar of this DSG-equipped car indicates only ten Golf Rs will be converted to the Manhart RS450 specification, which should be a worthy adversary for the RS3 and the AMG A45 S.