There’s a certain allure to Volkswagen’s R products: while their hallmark Lapiz Blue paintwork is distinctive, these performance models are otherwise velvet daggers, with relatively subtle styling belying serious shove.
While the Golf R has been the archetypal offering of Volkswagen’s skunkworks for generations, the family has included other models in the past – and the R lineup is once again expanding.
There’s a flagship Touareg R plug-in hybrid V6 petrol on the horizon, while the Tiguan R provides thrills for the whole brood – but we’ve opted to test the most affordable offering for a longer period. Enter the 2024 T-Roc R.
Navigate this long-term Volkswagen T-Roc R review
Month 2: Big miles in the T-Roc R has us wondering…
Where are all the fast small SUVs? Come to think of it: where are all the fast mainstream SUVs, full stop? Despite the enormous shift of Australian (and, generally-speaking, Western) buyer preferences towards SUVs over traditional cars, the performance variant subcategory has, largely, been lost in translation. And, frankly, it’s weird how that isn’t talked about or questioned more than it is.
We’ve been thinking about that more this month as it’s been a heavy period of driving for the T-Roc R, which – like our long-term test cars so often do – acted as a support vehicle for a recent Chasing Cars megatest.
Regular readers will know that we stage our big, multi-car events in Canberra, a region of hugely variable terrain that feels specially built for testing cars (oh, and hosting Parliament, we guess).
For the T-Roc R, that meant trawling the Hume Highway back and forth to Sydney on multiple runs – initially unladen for reconnaissance and, later, fully laden carting all manner of logistics equipment.
The former job is the more fun one. The Australian Capital Territory plays host to a number of southeastern Australia’s best roads, many of which have (for now) retained 100km/h speed limits – and even in quick cars, there are sections where you’d be working especially hard to get near that figure.
Generally running north-south, these roads blaze past pastoral land and then suddenly weave and duck around scenic pine forests with unexpected gradient changes. If you live in Sydney or Melbourne, it pays to make some time to drive Canberra’s roads.
The T-Roc R is quite well suited to the terrain here: variable weather and, from April to September, plenty of frost at the edges of the day reward the Volkswagen’s fitment of AWD, while the generous performance can be exploited time and again on the exit of tighter corners.
While we’re still not huge fans of the unnecessarily heavy electric power steering weight, the handling is fun and fizzy. Only the big 20-inch wheels and very low-profile tyres occasionally struggle with some of the worse unrepaired sections of tarmac out here.
Back on the Hume, with the T-Roc R’s surprisingly good Travel Assist adaptive cruise/strong lane-centring feature switched on (which takes over much of the work of highway driving), the only real distraction is the noticeable road noise. But with 275km (each way) of monotonous and largely straight driving, there’s plenty of time to think… about why other manufacturers largely haven’t tried to tap into this space.
The data clearly shows that Australians love SUVs and they love performance cars. We’re one of the best markets globally for Volkswagen GTI and R, so it’s not surprising that VW has taken the chance to pivot the latter badge towards crossover-land – effectively, it turns out, in the case of the T-Roc R.
And while Hyundai did have a crack with the Kona N ($49,200), which was discontinued as the generation it was based on finished up with the brand reporting too little European demand for a second-gen follow-up (at least for now).
Volkswagen’s Spanish cousin brand Cupra is getting into the mix with its fun-to-drive Formentor (from $56,490 driveaway, and a previous Chasing Cars long-termer): that car is almost more like a lifted wagon than an SUV. Cupra also sells the ageing Ateca (from $49,990 driveaway), which is a little larger than a T-Roc.
There have been one or two niche models, like 2018’s rather forgettable Nissan Juke Nismo ($37,790). Australia hasn’t received the likes of the Ford Puma ST ($60,800 in the UK).
What is conspicuous is that Toyota, Mazda, Hyundai, Kia, Nissan, Subaru, MG, BYD and others currently do not offer a single high-performance small SUV.
If you’re not into the Volkswagen Group stuff, you have to go premium.
The Audi SQ2 – closely related to the T-Roc R – is reasonably priced at $70,800 plus on-roads, but it’s all up from there: the BMW X1 M35i is $100K on the road while you’ll pay nearly $105,000 driveaway for a Mercedes-AMG GLA35 – and that’s not even the top-spec GLA, nor is it as good to drive as a T-Roc R.
The interesting five-cylinder Audi RSQ3 touches $115,000 as it leaves the showroom.
While the new X1 M35i is at least very spacious, the other elephant in the room is that the premium sporty crossovers haven’t actually cracked being fun to drive.
In each case, the hot hatches sold by Audi, BMW and AMG are all considerably more fun on nearly any road while also being quite a bit cheaper (S3/RS3, M135i and A35/A45). Driving enthusiasts might scoff at this paragraph, considering it to be self-evident.
But, again, that is where Volkswagen has pulled a rabbit out of the hat with the T-Roc R: as much as our cynical side is wired to want to declare the Golf R a magnitude better, it’s not as simple as car versus SUV in that case.
A Golf R is better than a T-Roc R: it’s a deeper cut employing the latest AWD tech, dampers and more power to achieve an even higher dynamic result.
But the T-Roc R is a genuinely fun, polished, fast SUV that has you cracking plenty of smiles in the corners. You don’t really miss the hatchbacks while you’re driving it because you’re having such a good time. Makes you wonder why its rivals aren’t trying in this space.
Month 1: Taking delivery of our new T-Roc R
What is it? We’ve added a new 2024 Volkswagen T-Roc R to the Chasing Cars long-term testing garage. It’ll be with us until after winter.
What’s a T-Roc R? Volkswagen sources tell us the T-Roc is, in many ways, the new Golf. You can still buy a Golf – what’s meant by the comment is that as a mainstream small SUV, the T-Roc is now the small VW best-aligned to Australian tastes.
It makes sense, then, that a true ‘R’ version of the T-Roc has been developed to be the entry-point to the R line.
How much is it? Considerably cheaper than a Golf R. The T-Roc R is now a single grade in Australia with a price of $63,490 before on-road costs.
At the time of delivery, it was on offer for $69,000 driveaway nationwide – about $7400 less than the Golf R. Volkswagen did sell, for a while, an even more affordable T-Roc R Grid Edition for $54,300 before on-roads (roughly, $59,000) in limited numbers.
What’s the spec of our car? Our T-Roc R is sans options. While it’s painted R-spec Lapiz blue, premium paint is included for the R version of the T-Roc. Beats premium audio was recently added to the standard features list and our tester has this feature.
Nappa leather is standard, as are 19-inch wheels. The only option is a panoramic sunroof ($2000) which we don’t have – ours is the slick top.
How long is it sticking around for? The best part of 10,000km.
What are we going to do with it? Live with it, mainly. The best part of Volkswagen’s R-rated models is that they are flexible. You can daily them (easily) but they promise genuine thrills on the right road or track. As a result, we’ll throw everything we can at the T-Roc R.
Initial performance figures? Like all our long-termers, we do induction testing to measure performance at the start of the loan. With 1000km on the clock, our T-Roc R recorded a 4.55 sec 0-100km/h time and a 35.13 metre 100-0km/h emergency stop – both being the best of three runs.