2019 Mazda MX-5 vs VW Golf R - TRACK REVIEW // DRAG RACE & LAP TIMES

You are watching a test on the throttle house

track

, welcome to the throttle house test

track

, our own corner of the earth where we can do

drag

racing and set lap

times

. I'm Thomas and I'm James and today is the battle of the perfect garage, yes. It would be great to have a distant lens for practical purposes. It is all-wheel drive. It's fast. It is comfortable. But also sharing that garage could be the me we have here after that. He is dressed like Thomas. For some reason. He is a roadster. It is rear wheel drive. light, but what happens when you go to sleep at night and the cars in your garage come to life and then battle each other and then we want to know which one is faster on the track and what you'd like to spend your 40 grand on because We love making apples to oranges comparisons on acceleration.

I'm living proof that you can crush both cars, but in the end James chose the Miata because it was too fun to pass up, so today he's going to see if he can find the same thrills in the Golf R and I'm taking the Miata

2019

around the track to see what it's all about and then for science, we'll set some lap

times

and this track test has been made possible thanks to controlling the crown rust. I bought my rust proof Subaru to use the crown and it is the best place to get your mats against the woes of winter.

See the link in the description below for more information, although the

2019

MX-5 now has a 7500 rpm redline. and an increase to 181 horsepower with 151 pound-feet of torque, it still has a lot less power for the price in a straight line, but it's a Miata, so it's light, agile and fun, so with a philosophy of Simplicity will still attack resistance. At the other end of the spectrum, the practical winter destroying the Golf R in Canada, the two cars you see before you get a price match, but while the Golf also has a one-liter four-cylinder engine, it's turbocharged and it's rated at 288 horsepower which is less than last year it went very far and it's a manual which is a slight disadvantage for me today as you'll see in a second if you're new to the throttle world we do

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s of cars, track tests and a lot of nonsense, so subscribe and press the button. belt, okay Miata, there's just no way I'm winning this unless James has a broken wrist or something.

Okay, I'm at the goal and you may have noticed that I wasn't actually using this a second ago, there was a bird. and I punched it out of the sky and it turned out that it actually wasn't even a real bird, it was actually just a flying rock. Okay, so the Golf R uses a Haldex all-wheel drive system. It weighs a thousand pounds more than that. art has a lot more power, so it should be an easy win, it will hold the line. Oh, Thomas, everything looks good, yes, but now it's no match, it actually gives you a pretty good Runyon element.

Let's go Lord of Catan The kata is actually quite fast. I'll be honest, it's an easy win for the

golf

ball, yeah, okay, you got a good look at it. I had a great launch. I made a great pitch. How was yours? Well, I reserved some. You got stuck, even though I did. but then you don't stand a chance well the good thing about that car right now between versus this car is that you can really screw it up and still completely crush me oh there's a lot of room for error which is good which is good because I have five reasons, okay, I don't think the world is going to fall, you know, onto the runway, onto the runway, okay, we're on the runway in the Gulf, I've got momentum, I've got oil momentum, this could be the better. car that you can have in your garage and I don't know anything about that, what is it like to drive the Miata on a track?

You know the answer, it's amazing, it's so fun, light and dirty, and just smile-inducing. Okay, not the address. It's usually hydraulic like that, obviously, but it's still really good. I can see what the front end is doing. I can see it understeering, which is usually not good, so Thomas already tested this car on the track, but this is a new day. warmer day which means lap times could be higher, it also means I can turn like this and to be honest the carbon fire doesn't have that great grip on the front end, I can feel the understeer in these corners , but because of all-wheel drive, when I come out of the corners, I can put my foot down and it works.

It's not as sharp as something like a Civic Type-r we tested recently, but it feels just as capable now that the redline is higher, meaning on the straights I can really accelerate and in the corners it's still a Miata. , the power delivery is very predictable and this is the GT, so it has the limited slip differential in the rear, which means the rear can go so predictably, it is what it is. like you have a while to realize that the car is sliding which makes it very easy to drive on the limit. It's like cheat mode is really really easy, so I have all the car and career mode right now, which means it's Taurus Bombs, shopping, the steering is heavy and the steering feels really good, really, very precise, with a lot of confidence.

Put this car on the road. It's never a good hatchback and it has limits on power, 288 horsepower, in fact, I'd like to see it. They will have to do it. Do it on the straight to make the Miata very capable in the corners. What I mean by this is that once you hit a corner you can carry speed. The front part does not slide. One thing I have found is that it is a bit challenging is that the front end grip is too much on entry and I find that I have very aggressive oversteer on corner entry which means it feels like the suspension is a bit too much. little neglected.

I think sometimes it's really hard to turn exactly where I want it, it's actually a little challenge for fun, it's good, but for speed I guess we'll find out. I want to see this car be fast and then have a lot of fun on the track and I can put two people in it. back seats on the way home if I want, which is not what you can do in the Arthur now, it's not as visceral as that Miata or a Type R or a Veloster, but it's composed, although this is a more subdued Carl. As for the altar, it is beautiful.

I'm really curious to see how he does on the fast laps because he's very good coming out of the corner. I knew it, maybe I can't stand it any more than art, but does the power make up for it? I don't know, we'll see, we'll see the lap time, so for this Thomas is using a Time Attack formula just like we've always done. He's going to do one warm-up lap, three fast laps and one cool-down lap. in the Miata let's see how it goes well, let's do the Miata first, as you can see in this lap, when this heats up a little bit, it loves to oversteer going into the corners, it's a lot of fun, but you have to pay attention to really drive. ten tenths or you could miss an apex, luckily I got a good clean lap, let's look at the Golf R now, this is a slow and fast type of car, totally different to drive than the Miata.

I spent most of my time as you could. I realize I'm fighting understeer and waiting for that moment when I can use all-wheel drive to rocket out of the corner, so let's see if a totally different but equally competent car can beat the MX-5. Okay, so we're back. I just did the hot laps fist in the hot laps interesting to watch I'm the first one where I'm scared oh why are you scared here? Because we thought we were going to be close, yeah, and if they're not close, everyone's going to be like, well, you. Buy G 2000gt and the reason is that they both cost $42,000.

These were literally the same classic price. Yes, don't question it. Wait, so can I see what I saw? Well, what did you think was faster? You look like you. I had trouble getting the grip on these so this time the back of that car spins going into the corner like I've never seen before if you go on the brakes you don't accelerate it's oversteering it's crazy it's fun , but it's actually difficult to do. the perfect line, I don't want to say, but I managed to get a good queen mop, you did well, are you ready? So yeah, the Miata, yeah, I did one 20.8 Wow, okay, and we've done this one before, this one was like 120, who's the reason?

It was a maximum of 120, okay, but it depends on the condition. This day is much warmer than last time. We're going to go far, which means twenty point eight one eighteen point four seven, that's pretty close, it's actually pretty close, very honest, yeah. on a narrow and twisty track like that, the Miata like there's one less straight and this is just beginning, this is the beginning, bridgestone potenza, yes, something better we have, like ps4, yes, exactly, these are the Conti Sport contacts , my laptop, my fastest. The lap in this car was the first lap, it went down from there to 1.21.4, then to 1.21.3.

Wow, okay, so, yeah, okay, there we have it, the Golf R is fast on an annelid track and then the Miata. Which is a shame, the art is better but the author is funnier and if you have any of these in your garage they are both epic cars for the money you pay.