If this was the case there would have been a court case.
Also in fairness you can be certain ALL manufacturers reverse engineer all the competitors carsto ensure they stay competitive
Only trusting Ford is a weird statement to make when everything is reverse engineered but etto.
Putting 250+hp through the front wheels and controling it is hardly putting man on the moon even i managed it so im pretty sure VW could
it was me who said i only trust Ford, not Janner. yes things are reverse engineered but they don't straight copy each other because of costs etc. some examples:
PQ35 cars have 4 link rear suspension, the Mk2 Focus had 5 link, the Civic has a torsion beam, as did the last Megane iirc so very different set ups.
i'm not doubting that VW have the capability, but they are limited by the bean counters wanting to make a car that is as profitable as possible. hence why we modify our cars to improve traction and handling.
my point is as a general rule of thumb if i was choosing two
factory spec FWD cars and for arguments sake they both had more than about 250bhp and one was a Ford and one was a VAG car then the Ford is likely to handle better.
you can unpick what i said to death, but the above sentence was all i'm trying to say. feel free to agree or disagree.