golf

Think the roads are bad in your neck of the woods? Growing up just a bit south of Detroit before moving to the sunnier climes of Arizona, this particular blogger has always assumed that Michigan's harsh winters and heavy traffic conspire to make the frost heaved and potholed highways of the Motor City the worst in the world. Apparently, that's not the case, and it's not even close.

The 2009 Volkswagen Golf GTI (Mark VI) is upon us, and as suspected, the thinly-veiled "concept" shown in Paris is an exact duplicate of the production model we'll be getting in the States this summer.

The rumored Volkswagen Scirocco R20T never made an appearance at the Geneva Motor Show, but according to CAR, V-Dub has something else up its sleeve for this year's Frankfurt Motor Show. The Brit pub is reporting the imminent arrival of the Volkswagen Golf GTI-R, a hotter version of VW's iconic hatch with a more powerful variant of the turbocharged 2.0-liter motivating all four wheels.

The current Volkswagen Golf (a.k.a. "Rabbit"), which is a 2010 model, hasn't made it through the front nine, and already the next Golf is being teed up behind it. The new model is planned for 2012, two years earlier than planned, perhaps because VW wants to recast what the Golf represents with a return to frugal-yet-sporty motoring.

So it's not just America that gets up in arms over commercials. Remember the Matrix-styled ad with the Volkswagen Golf designer fighting various versions of himself? It seems a number of British telly viewers think the commercial "is in breach of the broadcast advertising code for featuring excessive violence that could be copied by children." So they complained to the Advertising Standards Authority, and the ASA is now investigating.

VW is going to make the most of its new GTI, with three models joining what has already been a well received hot hatch. A 'GTD' variant using a 2.0-liter common rail diesel will go into production in April 2009, with 170 horses and nearly 260 lb.-ft. moving through either a six-speed manual or VW's DSG gearbox. The GTD will be sold at an €800 premium over its gasoline brother, and will get to 62 mph about a second slower in return for longer hauls between refills.

Click above for high-res images of the Golf BlueMotion concept

Click above for gallery of the new VW Golf VI