The new Volkswagen Arteon R revealed
Recently revealed, Volkswagen showed off their new Arteon and its R model, but everyone is calling it forbidden fruit. Surely showing off an even more stylish version of a stunning car while giving it a high-performance range option should be exciting. Well yes, but no. Volkswagen also recently discontinued the previous Arteon in South Africa and has no intention of giving this version a try.
Volkswagen Arteon gets a facelift and a shooting brake body.
The new facelift and R model weren’t the only things revealed, Volkswagen also showed off a new “shooting brake” body style which still stays true to the stylish Arteon. In fact, “shooting brake” or not, the overall design got exactly what a facelift would suggest. So, let’s go over the features.
There is a new continuous light strip that runs from the headlights and across the grille. This will make you unmistakable on the nighttime roads. There is more use of chrome throughout the design and the lower air intakes were redesigned. Overall, these were some really nice touches.
More space and more touch features.
Looking inside, there are some updates here too. There is a little bit of more headroom for those taller drivers and passengers which in turn increases the boot to 565 litres. Volkswagen has gone even further with touch-sensitive buttons, keeping them on the automatic air conditioner and bringing them over to the steering wheel. We can see that taking some time to get used to.
The infotainment system now has wireless access to both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which reminds us of the discussion we have about Apple’s recent collaboration with BMW. Optionally available is a 700 W Harman Kardon sound system if you want your music to be optimized for long drives.
The Arteon R is what we are really going to miss. 
Volkswagen has not confirmed many details about there being any updates to the drivetrains, but we do know that there will be a plug-in hybrid option. A new driver assistance feature was also mentioned, the Travel Assist which allows more autonomous driving.
As for the Volkswagen Arteon R, it should make 235 kW and 420 Nm through a 2-litre turbocharged petrol engine. This all driven through the 4Motion all-wheel-drive system. The Arteon R will also get a new piece of tech called R-Performance Torque Vectoring which distributes the torque variably between the axles and rear wheels.
It really is forbidden fruit
We now cannot think about anything else other than the fact that we won’t see a Volkswagen Arteon R on South African roads. Needless to say, we are glad to talk about it and maybe some of our favourite features can make their way to Volkswagens that are available to us in the future.
Source & images: Cars | Car Magazine
