An article from Car and Driver bears some good news for the Golf enthusiasts eager to shift for themselves: the 2016 Golf R will sport a manual option. While that may sound like the most backhanded offer of consolation, fear not, as Golf fans won’t have to wait for an entire year to get their hands on their configuration of choice.
The 2016 Golf R will drop in the summer of ’15, so there’s a slight wait for manual, but only a handful of months. Either way, Volkswagen enthusiasts will still get a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine that will send 292 horsepower to all four wheels.
There is a little bit of a tradeoff though. The Golf R with DSG is currently set to retail at $37,415, and the sought after manual should trim off $1,100 from the bottom line, but it will also be as much as half a second slower to accelerate, bringing its 4.9-second 0 to 60 time to 5.5 seconds.
It probably doesn’t seem like a lot, but to the performance-oriented, the world is measured by fractions of a second. Despite all the give and take, the Golf R will still improve upon the previous model in every way, including engine power, fuel economy and continue to make your GTI friends envious of your lack of torque steer.
