yeh but £26k and £28k for the Scirocco and Golf respectively!

Still a lot of money for a Golf!

The .:R brand isn't supposed to be cheap though, neither is it supposed to be a normal hot hatch.

Look at most hot hatches, the Golf GTI, Focus ST, Civic Type R, Megane 225 etc, they are all marketed at younger drivers or young professionals. They are all very capable cars and just as quick as the .:R in the real world.

However the .:R pulls its party trick by being AWD (apart from the new Scirocco) and is being marketed towards more mature drivers who don't want a run of the mill hot hatch but want something special yet comfortable. The .:R brand is the Audi equivalent of the RS range and are supposed to be more upmarket than the sub 20k hot hatches out there. The new Golf .:R20 will go head to head with the Audi RS3 thats coming out, and that will be around the 40k mark by the time you've added some toys.

Car manufacturers have been creating this segragation for a while. They make a top of the range car, but create another model above it thats totally different. Look at a few examples (in different extremes):

Vauxhall Carlton GSi vs Lotus Carlton

Escort RS2000 vs Escort Cosworth

Volvo 850 T5 vs 850 T5-R

Audi S4 vs Audi RS4

Clio 172 vs Clio V6

You get the idea....

However the .:R pulls its party trick by being AWD (apart from the new Scirocco) and is being marketed towards more mature drivers who don't want a run of the mill hot hatch but want something special yet comfortable. The .:R brand is the Audi equivalent of the RS range and are supposed to be more upmarket than the sub 20k hot hatches out there. The new Golf .:R20 will go head to head with the Audi RS3 thats coming out, and that will be around the 40k mark by the time you've added some toys.

The new R's are very nice and I agree with you that they are pitching these above the std. hot hatches and add some nice refinement that is not present in the sub £20k hot hatch segment.

My personal opinion is that the Golf R20 is more a competitor to the S3 rather than the forth coming RS3 as it is near enough the same car......

Back to the original topic is that after driving the MkV R32 last year, I was impressed and it sounded great but was put off with the £400 p/a road tax bracket :(

If the thought of the road tax, low 20's mpg doesn't put you off then go for it

Not sure about how muh to service these babies but I know from experience that Audi's are not cheap in this area!

my only bad comment of the R32 is that its expensive to buy and run for the performance you get.

You bought it yet, Gary?