#golf

Set for its unveiling next month in Paris, the 2013 Volkswagen Golf is going on a serious diet that will reduce weight and fuel consumption significantly.

Utterly pointless yet indisputably awesome, F1 racer David Coulthard and pro golfer Jake Shepherd set a new world record last month by catching a 178 mph golf ball in a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Roadster racing down a track.

Some entries in the Guinness Book of World Records are stupid. In fact most of them are. They encourage people to do things like grow their fingernails to almost three feet long. The record in this story is stupid too, but at least its really cool.

The Volkswagen Golf R Cabriolet is the drop top version of the powerful Golf R, and we now know thanks to patent drawings that the cabriolet concept we saw last year will be put into production, although it likely won’t make it the the States. 

The last couple days have been a storm of spy photos with the latest to come our way picturing the 2013 Volkswagen Golf GTI.

Price, looks and size… these are the few factors that used to decide what vehicle you’d park in your driveway. Looking for a cheap and small car? A Toyota Corolla or Honda Civic will do. Need something bigger, perhaps a mid-size Hyundai Sonata or an SUV. Things used to be pretty easy.

With increasingly high gas prices and an overall movement towards green, fuel efficient vehicles, fuel economy has become more important. In fact, for many price, looks and size are now completely trumped by fuel economy.

“Buyers just look at the MPG on the sticker,” says IHS Automotive Analyst Devin Lindsay commenting that car buyers are now completely mesmerized by the EPA sticker label.

Take a look at the Toyota Prius, for example. It’s not terribly big, is fairly expensive, and looks… well… weird. But that didn’t stop three million of them from being sold, all thanks to a hybrid gas-electric engine that provides excellent fuel economy.

The Prius isn’t the only option for someone looking for a fuel efficient car, however; especially those in search of a more engaging driving experience. If you want to cut down on trips to the pump, and still drive a fun, powerful, good looking car, your best bet might just be in a diesel powered vehicle. That does mean you’ll almost certainly have to drive German, although a flood of new diesel-powered vehicles are about to hit our shore.

Hyundai and Rhys Millen Racing deserve a round of applause for their recent video antics that spread through the Internet like a leaked photo from a celebrity cell phone.

This time around, the team took their Veloster Rally Car out to the golf course where it replaced the traditional golf cart. Almost everything you can imagine that shouldn’t be combined into a video, is. We’re talking golf clubs, golf balls, a 500-hp Veloster with 600 lb-ft of torque, and cows. Yes, we said cows.

Really there’s no reason behind this video, other than the fact that millions of people will watch it which means millions of eye balls on Hyundai’s little Veloster.

Check out the video after the break.

Writing about cars all the time can do some funky things to your taste in wheels, invariably automotive journalists flock to the best of the best. The funny part is that those parameters get warped pretty easily, leaving one writers idea of an ideal car miles away from another.

Congratulations are in order for Volkswagen. The Routan has just earned the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s (IIHS) Top Safety Pick award, making it the ninth Volkswagen vehicle to receive this rating. This also means that Volkswagen has received the highest number of IIHS awards for vehicle safety.

You couldn’t ask for a better time to sell Kate Middleton’s car than right now, just after her royal wedding. The current owner of the indigo blue, three-door 2001 Volkswagen Golf, Sonny Brazil, who lives close to the Middleton’s home in Berkshire, England is auctioning off the car via Ebay. Brazil, 21, bought the car for $2,300 (£1,400) in 2009 after Kate, 29, gave the Golf to her brother James.

It’s always a treat to see an automaker roll out a modified version of one of their models. At Wörthersee this year, Volkswagen allowed their younger generation of employees to modify a Golf GTI for everyone to admire at the show. The Golf GTI Reifnitz, as it was named, in homage to where the event takes place, sports 370-hp, an impressive increase from the factory’s 210-hp figure.

The 235-hp GTI Edition 35 can be ordered now, and the 440-hp all-drive VW Motorsport Golf24 will compete in this year’s 24-hour race at the Nürburgring (23 to 26 June).

Volkswagen is cooperating closely with the city of Hanover to launch a new car sharing project with 200 VW Golf BlueMotion vehicles called “Quicar- Share a Volkswagen”. There will be 50 pick-up and drop-off locations throughout the city, however, this number may reach 100 locations. The program was set up to highlight the efficiency of these vehicles including high vehicle availability and excellent functionality.

Since the launch of the redesigned Volkswagen Jetta, registrations among new owners have soared, suggesting that the newer, more affordable Jetta is a home run with consumers.

Even with skyrocketing fuel prices, subcompacts are selling less than their compact counterparts.  The Ford Fiesta was the overall leader in the subcompact department, 9,147 sales but still trailed the larger Focus’  17,265 total sales. Honda Civic sales rose 7% to 26,777 which is more than triple the Fit’s total of 8,116 units in April. Furthermore, the mid-size Accord even managed to outsell the Civic.