What's all this about?

Cast your minds back to the middle of last year and you might dimly remember Volkswagen Motorsport entering two wild-looking Golf GTI TCR racing concepts into the Touring Car Racer (TCR, geddit?) International Series, to see how they'd get on. These beasts had extreme bodywork on a chassis 400mm wider than the regular GTI's, with a development of the EA888 2.0-litre turbocharged four-pot kicking out 330hp and 410Nm.

So?

So this is the 'finished' version of those concepts, ready and raring to go for the 2016 season. Volkswagen Motorsport has built 20 of these and customer teams across the world have snapped them up. The car is eligible to race in 16 international and national TCR series.

Will it be any good?

Well, one of those two concepts of 2015 won the second race at the Red Bull Ring in Austria and as the Golf GTI TCR takes a lot of inspiration (and know-how) from the SEAT

When will the TCRs be in action?

Deliveries to the customer teams will be completed by mid-March and the TCRs should be hitting the circuits in anger very soon after that.

Hold on, isn't 2016 a big anniversary year for the Golf GTI?

Well-remembered, have you got it a card? If you haven't, don't worry. Volkswagen is instead giving the Golf a special present in the form of the most powerful production example of its hot hatch in its 40-year history. The Golf GTI Clubsport is due out later this year and its 2.0-litre TFSI engine runs 265hp normally (35hp up on the previous best for any Volkswagen GTI), with 290hp temporarily available during 'boost function'. Still down on the Golf R, then, but not bad for a front-drive performance hatch, eh?