Volkswagen R brand to expand and get more extreme

The Volkswagen ‘R’ brand is about to get more extreme than ever before, with the horsepower war getting serious with high-performance from rival brands breaching the 300kW mark.

The German brand admitted that its current performance models – the GTI and R – have been trailing rivals with significant power deficits.

However, speaking to Auto Express at the Beijing Motor Show recently, Volkswagen Sales and Marketing Boss, Jurgen Stackmann revealed the ‘R’ brand will undergo dramatic changes that include I.D electric vehicles, a nearly 300kW Golf R, as well as the T-Roc and Tiguan SUVs.

“The R brand is going extreme and can go extreme,” Stackmann revealed.

“The role of R is that it can go beyond the pure rational; nobody needs a compact car with 400bhp (298kW), but there is a place, certainly, and that’s the turf of R,” he added.

Stackmann added: “With a little more expressive design, R can go beyond the rational side of things. It [the R brand] can find its place in a different league of pure performance and there’s a space where customers are willing to pay a significant amount of money.”

The next-generation Mk8 Golf R is almost certain to be the first model to benefit from this shift in philosophy, with the upcoming Mercedes-AMG A45 a direct target.

And it won’t be just the traditional models that will benefit from this, either, as VW intends to expand the R brand into its future range of I.D electric cars.

“The I.D R that we put into Pikes Peak shows that the R strategy needs a dimension on the electric world. It cannot stick to just conventional powertrain solutions – it is a new dimension to our brand,” Stackmann explained.

Note: Volkswagen R400 Concept shown