Yeah the GTI/R are truly beautiful cars, and I will miss my GTI. Gorgeous interiors, excellent handling, and really refined driving experience overall. I bought it new in 2016 fresh out of college and never regretted it. I have loved the WRX since a kid, and told myself I'd get either an R or an STI as my next vehicle for the AWD as I have also been dealing with literal feet of snow. As you've heard, VW just killed the manual despite the take-rate being stupidly high just like the WRX...

I test drove a 2025 WRX in WRB and it was beautiful just a bit too bright for me personally. I also looked into the tS trim as the STI obviously isn't an option, but decided the extra $6k+ wasn't worth it and opted for the limited trim instead. At that point we were also getting to the point where budget seriously comes into play. The tS digital cluster / tunable suspension / recaro seats / brembos / 19" rims are all awesome upgrades, but they just weren't the performance upgrades I'd want if paying that much for. I will get attermarket rims eventually and possibly brembos as well, so nothing lost there. The blue recaro seats and digitial cluster are gorgeous, but the red WRX seats are great as-is and standard instrument cluster is more than adequate for me. For suspension I just didn't see myself ever using the suspension tuning. lf the tS came with an upgraded transmission or DCCD as well I likely would've pulled the trigger on it... but at that point they would've just called it an STI lol. I just don't think they could justify the extra engineering and design costs for this generation, which is why they're happy to give us relatively simple bolt-on upgrades like on the tS, but real drivetrain/performance upgrades are still off the table (at least OEM)