It’s long been a rumour and now the head of the Volkswagen brand has all but confirmed it: the Wolfsburg automaker does indeed appear to be working on hot “R” versions of its SUVs.
According to a new report from AutoExpress, VW brand boss Herbert Diess said there is “definitely customer demand” for high-performance SUVs, adding that the R badge would be the obvious choice (with the GTI moniker being reserved for hot hatches).
“We have a second sub-brand, which is R. With R, we are considering. GTI has something to do with the hatch and this size of car – we shouldn’t expand this brand,” Diess told the British publication at Lake Worthersee.
“For high-performance SUVs, there is definitely customer demand. There are some premium cars there already that are quite successful. I agree that it is a good fit for the brand,” he confirmed.
The AutoExpress report speculated that a T-Roc R would be most likely to arrive first, but we’ve already heard rumours of a Tiguan R being tested…
