What It Is: Handily, Volkswagen has taken most of the guesswork out of deciphering just what the Golf R400 is and put it right there in the name. It’s an all-wheel-drive Golf with a worked-over 2.0T engine churning out somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 horsepower.

Captured undergoing testing at the Nürburgring, the R400 has a prominent rear wing and meaty, cross-drilled brake rotors. It’s also wearing different wheels than the R400 concept’s twisted five-spoke pieces, which means little. Perhaps in the name of stealth, the 400 also features the twin-tip dual-outlet exhausts from the Golf R, rather than the concept’s widely spaced center-exiting dual pipes.

View Photos CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE, THE MANUFACTURER

Why It Matters: Even as Mitsubishi’s Lancer Evo hoons into the sunset, the four-pot, four-driven-wheels, turbocharged segment is heating up. We saw a new Subaru WRX and STI for 2015, the Golf’s Audi S3 sibling is a positive ripper, and the upcoming Ford Focus RS has the fanboy tongues a-wagging. Volkswagen wants to drive its Teutonically engineered stake to the top of the pile.

Platform: Built on VW’s ubiquitous MQB platform, which underpins a majority of the company’s new transverse-engine front-drive-based vehicles, the Golf R400 shares its bones with everything from the lowliest SEAT León to the Porsche Cayman–fighting Audi TTS.

Powertrain: VW’s seemingly infinitely tunable 2.0-liter turbo four was cranked up to 395 horsepower in the concept version of the Golf R400—the 400 refers to metric horsepower; that converts to 395 in SAE-speak—but we’d expect the production model to reach the magic 400-hp mark. Or possibly more (some folks believe the model will earn the name R420). All that twist and shout gets routed through a six-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission and to the 19-inch wheels via the Haldex 5 all-wheel-drive system also seen in the Audi S3. The various pistons and gears and clutches and valves and tires and whatnot all conspire to punt the concept car to 62 mph in 3.9 seconds and on to a 174-mph top speed, according to Volkswagen.

View Photos CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE, THE MANUFACTURER

Competition: Audi S3, Ford Focus RS, Subaru WRX STI

Estimated Arrival and Price: The latest word from VW is that the R400 has not yet been confirmed for production (the company excels at that sort of yes/no tease), but VW has said that if it is approved, it will be sold in all markets. If the powers that be in Wolfsburg decide the world can’t live without the thing, expect it for 2018. As for the cash outlay? We’d figure a starting price somewhere in the mid-$40K range. If you haven’t got a nickel-hoarding habit, we’d suggest acquiring one right about now.

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