I apologize for the delay, been busy with school and farming credits in GT5
but as promised, here is the second car I will be reviewing, Dragonthing's Golf Turbo R.
I just have a soft spot for hatchbacks. I dunno why. Ever since GT2 I fell in love with the VW Golf IV's simple design. It's what they say, a "hot hatch". And a hot hatch indeed it is. Now take the Golf VI R. Its sleek styling makes it look like it's ready for some racing on the get-go. This car can become both your weekend racer and your usual road trip car with enough space for your friends...and food.
Since this is an expensive tune, I'll be raising my expectations slightly a bit. Yup, this sounds just like my review of VTiRoj's Civic Turbo R.
First impressions:
This hot hatch has obviously been maxed out. It has been lightened to the limit, and had its engine squeeze every bit of power possible. The High RPM turbo's lag can somewhat be set off by the Golf's amazing engine tune which still retains the mid-RPM torque and drivability. The car has been lowered as much as possible, and that makes me curious as to how this car will behave. However, I am a bit concerned about the differential settings. A 40-60 torque distribution...hmmm...this review will turn out to be interesting... and a bit scary.
With all that, to the test track!
Track: Trial Mountain Circuit / Forward
Arcade Mode - Time Trial
To fully test the car's handling tune, I opted to go for Sports Soft tires. As soon as I got the car to the track, there was just one word that stuck in my mind: GRIP. So much grip. Trail-braking with this car is very good, I can steer to correct my racing line while braking. It also allows for overtaking maneuvers on high-speed straight followed up by low-speed corners. The car also has nice accel-off turning after braking for a corner. I was surprised that the Golf's behavior wasn't erratic, even though its ride height has been lowered greatly. Thanks to it, the car had a lower center of gravity, which adds to the overall high stability only AWD can offer. Add to all of that the responsive steering nature of the car and you get excellent handling like no other. Speed was plentiful, thanks to the High RPM turbo and the maxed-out engine tune.
However, problems arises when I tackle flat, high-speed sweepers. On banked high-speed sweepers I have no problems. But the corner exits on the flat ones definitely made me scared. I get understeer whenever I punched the gas too early on the flat ones. You still have the grip while turning, problem is you're headed straight into a wall
there were instances when I lifted off the gas to get back to the racing line. Sometimes I was successful, sometimes I wasn't, because of understeer. This made the car's behavior quite unpredictable. I managed to trace the problem to its cause, and I was right from the beginning, right before I started driving this car. It was the center differential. A 40-60 Front-Rear torque distribution makes the car a bit stiff, and can cause understeer at the most unexpected of times. If the center differential was setup right, this car would become a monstrous cornering machine.
In spite of all the criticisms, this amazing combination of speed and agility has certainly given this car novelty value in my garage. I managed to set a pretty good lap time, 1:32.171 .
Pros:
- This thing has both speed and handling in a small package. Great fun to drive
- Excellent trail-braking allows for some serious overtaking maneuvers and can catch opponents off-guard
Cons:
- Center differential setup does maximize grip, but presents understeer when you least expect it
Recommendations:
- Re-tune the center differential, and tune other components (LSD, suspension etc.) whenever necessary
Rating based on review:
9.2 / 10 👍
I still can't bring myself to drive a GT-R by choice, but I'll tune anything because I'm a nice dragon 
