OK, did a little rummaging around on Instagram and came up with this pic of an "R Line" Mk8 Golf sitting in the factory. It's the first Mk8 that I really liked how the front end looks. Hopefully the full R will have the same good looks.
Sorry, but I’m not seeing the good looks of that R-Line, although I appreciate whether it looks good or not is subjective.
IMO there are a couple of areas that don’t really work;
- the wide sloping section of the bumper between the narrow upper grille and the license plate. This’ll almost certainly be the same on the R. I think a more balanced look would’ve been achieved if the upper grille had been taller / deeper (top to bottom) and the sloping section of the bumper was narrower. It does look less offensive on light coloured cars IMO - like on the white ‘undisguised’ car in the link to Autocar on page 1 of this discussion thread.
- the very large ‘wide mouthed grin’ lower grille that spans the entire width of the front of the car. Hopefully, the design on production models of the R will be different.
Also, with the very large grid style of the holes in the lower grille on the R-Line, the grill provides very little protection to the radiator / a/c condenser. I wonder how many R-Line owners will suffer damage to these components as a result of projectile stones passing through the lower grille that are thrown up by other vehicles.