Despite a rocky start in the United States, the Volkswagen Arteon is finally on sale and the news surrounding it has been interesting. Volkswagen has been spotted testing a more practical shooting brake variant and there's even word of a hotter R variant to fight the Kia Stinger GT. The rumors of a hot Arteon R have gone cold recently but in our most recent set of spy shots, we spotted what appears to be a prototype version of the faster Arteon.

Surprisingly, this prototype wears no camouflage, just a small amount of tape upfront. The Arteon will likely see a facelift for the 2021 model year but there are several clues to indicate this is a fully-fledged R model and not just an R-Design appearance package.

The typical blue R brake calipers are a dead giveaway and the prototype also features larger air intakes, brakes with drilled discs, a small spoiler, rear diffuser, and quad exhaust pipes. The standard Arteon, even the R-Design model, makes do with twin exhaust but these tips are like the ones you'd see on an AMG product. The wheels do look a bit small for an R model but this is a prototype after all and the car is being winter tested in the snow. We often see development vehicles wearing different wheels than the production car.

As for the powertrain, the standard Arteon uses a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder producing 268 horsepower going out to all-wheel-drive. Like the Golf R, the Arteon R is expected to retain its AWD system and power is rumored to sit at 400 hp courtesy of a 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6. The Arteon's closest rival, the Kia Stinger, produces 365 hp from its 3.3-liter twin-turbo V6. We expect VW to reveal the Arteon R in mid-2020 as a 2021 model and we hope the car will be offered in the US market.