It is said that in 1976, Volkswagen nearly invented the hot hatch with its first Golf GTi, but in spite of its frisky nature it wasn't really sufficient. VW then recreated the hot hatch as a V6 with the Golf VR6 and the following Golf R32 which was still not sufficient.

VW has now come back to its four-cylinder roots with shocking results. What's generated from VW's latest hard work is an evolutionary machine that can assert to be the most dominant and hardest accelerating Golf ever built.

Car and SUV took a drive in the merely named Golf R to sample, its characteristic formula of expediency and pure thrill. The new Golf R comes packaged with the turbocharged four.

The hard-tuned 2.0-litre engine thumps out 199kW of power a 15kW increase over the gregarious R32 and 350Nm of torque a 30Nm increase. Maximum boost runs at 17 psi and all available grunt comes on at 6000rpm.

The outcome is said to be remarkable and the Golf R will sprint from standing to 100 kph in just 5.5 seconds and won't give up till it hits a top speed of 250 kph.

Visually, the Golf R has incorporated some modish yet slight changes over the GTi but in hot hatch terms it is a rather controlled and understated four-door.

At $72,500 the Golf R is $15k more costly than the GTi, a reasonable mass of modifications in the present financial climate.