The CarWOW team has arranged a race between two prominent hot hatchbacks, the Honda Civic Type R and the Volkswagen Golf R. Both have two liters of turbocharged displacement, four cylinders and 320 PS (316 hp / 235 kW), but the Golf R is three and a half years younger and benefits from AWD, whereas the Type R has to make do with FWD.
The Type R has 400 Nm (295 lb-ft) of peak torque, which it sends to the wheels through a six-speed manual transmission. Prices in Great Britain start from £32,800.
The Golf R has launch control, 420 Nm (310 lb-ft) of torque and a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. It weighs 170 kg (375 lbs) more than its rival does and starts £6,500 above it.
In the races that followed, the Golf R won outright thanks to its AWD system, only yielding to the Civic at a brake test.
A few weeks ago, CarWOW put the latest Golf R up against other similarly priced AWD hot hatches, and the results were much closer than this.