Volkswagen R – Volkswagen R GmbH created

Volkswagen has created a new company – Volkswagen R GmbH – to handle their performance cars – such as the Golf R and Scirocco R – and R-Line cosmetic packages.

Mercedes has AMG, BMW has its M Division and Audi has quattro. Volkswagen already has cars badged with the ‘R’ moniker - which originally meant performance models but can now equally mean just cosmetic changes to appear faster – but until now it was just a badge without a clearly defined place in VW’s structure. But not any more.

Volkswagen has created a new company – Volkswagen R GmbH - which will be responsible for “…competencies in development, implementations and sales of individualised vehicles”, much of which used to be done by Volkswagen Individual. We reported in January that VW were going to launch Volkswagen R GmbH – although we expected the announcement at Geneva – and we’re really hoping that making ‘Volkswagen R’ a seperate entity means that we will see more than just more bolt-on extras across the VW range.

It’s a certainty that there will be cosmetic ‘R’ packages for more cars across the VW range, because that’s what buyers want and VW are very good at it. But if they are going to imbue the ‘R’ badge with the same sort of credibility as Mercedes’ AMG or BMW’s M then they will have to have more than a couple of cars in the range – the VW Golf R and the VW Scirocco R - which are true R Performance cars.

Be interesting to see where this goes.