Spy shots Volkswagen Golf R20

The upcoming R20 Golf will be previewed at the end of May in the Nurburgring 24-Hour race in Germany, the same event where Volkswagen uncorked its great looking Scirocco coupe in 2008.

The R20 takes the place of the outgoing R32 model and will sit above the latest Golf GTi, which has just been previewed in Europe ahead of Australia sales later this year.

The R20 takes a fresh approach, as Volkswagen has dumped its feisty V6 engine and replaced it with a direct-injection turbo four which will have 201 kiloWatts.

It has already tackled the Nurburgring during development trials, where the car was caught in great detail by the Caparazzi crew.

Their pictures show a car which is very similar to the latest GTi, but with a more-aggressive body kit and a centre-mounted exhaust to tell people what has just come past.

The R20 is only expected to be built as a three-door hatch, at least at first, and Volkswagen is aiming for a 0-100km/h time in the low five-second range with a top speed limited to 250km/h.

The decision to dump the R32 has already been confirmed by Rolf Trump, the head of engineering for Golf and GTi.

"We believe the R32 was a concept that was out of touch with its time. It has very high fuel consumption and the outputs were not adequate,” Trump says.

"An intelligent four-cylinder engine now can deliver adequate performance with much better economy. Fuel economy is definitely the priority now.

"It is a fact of life today because of the environmental and emissions controls - it is not feasible to use a six-cylinder for this, and the four-cylinder is on an equal par.”

"There will still be a performance model - the R-line - but that will now be a four-cylinder and this is the first time we will see the R-line with 4Motion (Volkswagen's all-wheel drive system).”

Apart from the R20, which should be in European showrooms towards the end of the year and ready for Australia in the first half of 2010, Volkswagen is also working on a 35th anniversary Golf GTi for the car's birthday in 2011.