Al_in_Philly
Autocross Newbie
- Location
- Philadelphia USA
We had a recent snow here in the Northeast, which meant that for a couple of days I wasn’t able to ride my motorcycle, a heavily tuned Yamaha FJR1300. Though I live in Philadelphia, and not in Miami, I ride year-round. There’s just something about being one with a machine that can hit 60 in well under 3 seconds, and just goes where you’re thinking about going almost as it it were an extension of your own being. I almost start Jonesing if I don’t ride for a few days, even in the dead of winter. Yet there I was, driving our little blue R to work, doing it with the same grin on my face that I had driving home from the dealer’s the very first time just over 3 years ago. What is it about this car that can still generate that level of playful satisfaction?
My R hasn’t been tuned. Even if it was, it would never offer the literally arm stretching acceleration which my FJR has. No car under $100,000 can. But it is quick. As quick as I’m ever likely to really need. Quick enough to make me smile. . . a lot. I have no desire to take my car to a track and see how quickly I can turn a lap, so occasionally hitting triple digits on open roads is about it for me, along with sudden bursts of acceleration just for shits and giggles.
Years back I had a Ford Festiva, which actually wasn’t all that bad of a car. Even though it was propelled by a diminutive 1.3 liter four, it was often the fastest car on the expressways surrounding Philadelphia, easily passing Corvettes and Porsches. Not that those cars couldn’t go faster than the typical 85 MPH that I would drive that little Festiva, but the drivers of those uber-fast sports cars typically limited themselves to 75-80. Which is faster: the car capable of 180 but is only drive at 75 MPH, or the car which could only possibly hit 90 but is driven at 85? Who would have thought a Ford Festiva would ever appear in a Zen koan? Which brings me back to my Golf R. A Focus RS or an Audi RS3 may be faster and turn quicker lap times, but in the driving which I do, would they really provide me with more performance, when my R typically has performance in reserve, no matter what I seem to throw at it in the real world? Plus, it does so with comfort, practicality, and a lot of style. Now you see where that grin on my face comes from.
In some of the automotive press, there’s a common refrain that the R is plain or boring looking, compared to cars like the Focus RS, Civic Type R, or the Subaru STI. I think that those journalists are confusing “plain” and “boring” with “elegant.” When I saw the first photos of the Mk7 Golf, my jaw dropped. When Giorgetto Giugiaro penned the first Golf, it was a design masterpiece. The world saw his genius work of simplicity as well, and has never stopped buying them through all of its various iterations. The Mk7 may have surpassed that original masterpiece, blending the subtle curvatures which Giugiaro’s design had evolved into with just the right number of sharp creases to carry the eye along the car’s sheet metal. “Exquisite execution of lines and surface,” said automotive designer Tom Gale when Motor Trend voted the Golf car of the Year in 2015. Think of such classic designs as the Studebaker Avanti and the Jaguar XKE. They were simple, elegant, almost bereft of any extraneous ornamentation; just minimal flowing lines in a single unified statement. Parsimonious perfection. And the R is only more so. Without breaking the existing lines and balance of the base Golf’s design with huge wings, tacked-on hood scoops, and extraneous plastic moldings which have little to no function besides saying “look, I’m the performance version,” the R’s gaping air inlets residing below the bumper, wider wheels, slightly larger rear spoiler, and quad exhausts, subtly infuses functional performance elements on the flowing Mk7 body lines as if this was the intended body style all along.
So, the other day when I was leaving work to drive home in the R, instead of riding my bike, I saw a man in a business suit, probably mid 40’s, just staring at my R parked out on the street. I stayed back watching him, just out of curiosity. Over at least 4-5 minutes he walked back and forth along the side of my car and once walking in front of it and stooping down slightly. He then walked a few car lengths down the street and got in a big silver SUV. Yes, I had done a few subtle mods to my R, 18” Advanti winter wheels/tires, ROW electric folding silver mirrors, ROW LED tail lights, and a small SRS-TEC spoiler lip, but I realized that this guy just had to look at my car, for a long, long, time. A Golf R, stunning in its elegant simplicity. Even without the wings and body moldings of its competitors.
After the man left in his SUV, I got in my little blue R, started it up, put on some Bonnie Raitt, and began to grin. Again. After three years with my R.
My R hasn’t been tuned. Even if it was, it would never offer the literally arm stretching acceleration which my FJR has. No car under $100,000 can. But it is quick. As quick as I’m ever likely to really need. Quick enough to make me smile. . . a lot. I have no desire to take my car to a track and see how quickly I can turn a lap, so occasionally hitting triple digits on open roads is about it for me, along with sudden bursts of acceleration just for shits and giggles.
Years back I had a Ford Festiva, which actually wasn’t all that bad of a car. Even though it was propelled by a diminutive 1.3 liter four, it was often the fastest car on the expressways surrounding Philadelphia, easily passing Corvettes and Porsches. Not that those cars couldn’t go faster than the typical 85 MPH that I would drive that little Festiva, but the drivers of those uber-fast sports cars typically limited themselves to 75-80. Which is faster: the car capable of 180 but is only drive at 75 MPH, or the car which could only possibly hit 90 but is driven at 85? Who would have thought a Ford Festiva would ever appear in a Zen koan? Which brings me back to my Golf R. A Focus RS or an Audi RS3 may be faster and turn quicker lap times, but in the driving which I do, would they really provide me with more performance, when my R typically has performance in reserve, no matter what I seem to throw at it in the real world? Plus, it does so with comfort, practicality, and a lot of style. Now you see where that grin on my face comes from.
In some of the automotive press, there’s a common refrain that the R is plain or boring looking, compared to cars like the Focus RS, Civic Type R, or the Subaru STI. I think that those journalists are confusing “plain” and “boring” with “elegant.” When I saw the first photos of the Mk7 Golf, my jaw dropped. When Giorgetto Giugiaro penned the first Golf, it was a design masterpiece. The world saw his genius work of simplicity as well, and has never stopped buying them through all of its various iterations. The Mk7 may have surpassed that original masterpiece, blending the subtle curvatures which Giugiaro’s design had evolved into with just the right number of sharp creases to carry the eye along the car’s sheet metal. “Exquisite execution of lines and surface,” said automotive designer Tom Gale when Motor Trend voted the Golf car of the Year in 2015. Think of such classic designs as the Studebaker Avanti and the Jaguar XKE. They were simple, elegant, almost bereft of any extraneous ornamentation; just minimal flowing lines in a single unified statement. Parsimonious perfection. And the R is only more so. Without breaking the existing lines and balance of the base Golf’s design with huge wings, tacked-on hood scoops, and extraneous plastic moldings which have little to no function besides saying “look, I’m the performance version,” the R’s gaping air inlets residing below the bumper, wider wheels, slightly larger rear spoiler, and quad exhausts, subtly infuses functional performance elements on the flowing Mk7 body lines as if this was the intended body style all along.
So, the other day when I was leaving work to drive home in the R, instead of riding my bike, I saw a man in a business suit, probably mid 40’s, just staring at my R parked out on the street. I stayed back watching him, just out of curiosity. Over at least 4-5 minutes he walked back and forth along the side of my car and once walking in front of it and stooping down slightly. He then walked a few car lengths down the street and got in a big silver SUV. Yes, I had done a few subtle mods to my R, 18” Advanti winter wheels/tires, ROW electric folding silver mirrors, ROW LED tail lights, and a small SRS-TEC spoiler lip, but I realized that this guy just had to look at my car, for a long, long, time. A Golf R, stunning in its elegant simplicity. Even without the wings and body moldings of its competitors.
After the man left in his SUV, I got in my little blue R, started it up, put on some Bonnie Raitt, and began to grin. Again. After three years with my R.