Amen to that...I just SAT in a MkII TT and I can't ever buy another MkI, it's so much nicer.

Anyway my take on it...I wouldn't buy a 2.0T right now...because 1. I wouldn't settle for an automatic gearbox and 2. I wouldn't settle for a FWD anything if I could choose a car.

Mod wise it depends what you want to do. A 2.0T you can get extra power out of for not that much money...problem is, it's not going to be that much power. You might be able to pull it up to 300bhp with a few thousand of bolt-ons on a stock turbo. Even then, you'll be doing all this on a FWD platform, which will probably give you traction issues-a-plenty. But if you don't really car about FWD, don't really care about automatic, and don't really care about not making insane HP, it's a good option.

On the other hand, with a 3.2 you could have quattro and a six speed manual and tons of horsepower potential. Judging by how you said your family's used to Mercs and is willing to buy you a brand new TT, I guess that you could probably afford a turbo setup on a 3.2, in which case you could just call up these guys:
http://www.hpamotorsports.com/products_turbo_twin.htm
and have a 500+ AWHP car.

So it's up to you, I'd go with a 3.2 myself if I had money to blow.

 

yea Murder, after reading that post it really leans me to the AWD, the thing i was worried about with the AWD system is that there wouldnt be many performance parts, but obviously i was wrong. and not only did i want to put alot of horsepower on the FWD but it would also be harder to drive in the winter with that much hp in the snow.