Volkswagen Race Cars

Cars.co.za seems to be the go-to YouTube channel when it comes to quality car content from South Africa. It’s always interesting to see how the car scene is in other regions of the world and this highly modified Mk V Volkswagen Golf R32 is a perfect example, as it is capable of making plenty of exotic cars cry on the drag strip.

Volkswagen only recently introduced its first I.D. all-electric production model, but it’s been toying with the concept since the Dieselgate emissions scandal in 2015. Following its withdrawal from motorsport, Volkswagen developed the I.D. R, an all-electric race car with 671 horsepower.

The German brand first raced the I.D. R at Pikes Peak in 2018, setting a new record for electric cars. It also set records at the Nurburgring Nordschleife, Good Festival of Speed Hillclimb, Tianmen Mountain, and Bilster Berg. More recently Volkswagen gave the EV to F1 driver Nico Rosberg for a hot lap around the Nurburgring F1 track and the I.D. R sounds like a space ship under full throttle.

While we’re waiting to see how the Golf 8 GTI really is like, let’s take a moment and appreciate this unique, Golf 7 GTE called the GTE HyRacer. Developed by the members of a Volkswagen Retail Group Germany apprenticeship program, this is the latest in a rather long line of interesting one-off builds and it was supposed to take center stage at the annual Worthersee show in Austria. Sadly, the show’s been canceled due to the pandemic but not the project which did get completed and now we can share with you the result, a stunning prototype that one-ups even the Golf 8 GTI in terms of power.

The Top Gun: Maverick premiere might have been pushed back all the way to December due to COVID-19 but thanks to this video, you can still get a taste of that jet fighter engine flavour.

Sure, Tom Cruise has nothing to do with what you’re about to watch as the main character here is a Volkswagen Bus that now uses a jet engine to destroy every moving vehicle on the drag strip.

Launched in 1974 as a replacement for the dated Beetle, the Volkswagen Golf became a big hit and quickly transformed into a legendary nameplate that has soldiered on over eight generations.

Although the first-gen Golf was developed as a humble daily driver, Volkswagen also launched a beefed-up GTI model. In addition, the boxy hatchback was converted to race spec as early as 1975. The first Golf race car ever built just showed up for auction at RM Sotheby’s, which will attempt to sell it during an event in Essen, Germany, on June 24.

Volkswagen continues to impress us with its I.D. R race car, the moving technology lab of the giant from Wolfsburg, one that’s been created to break records and, in the process, prove to the world that Volkswagen’s EVs will knock everybody out of the park. Last weekend, during the 2019 Goodwood Festival of Speed Romain Dumas driving a revised version of the I.D. R did just that, making every other car that has ever run on Lord March’s Hillclimb course seem pedestrian as he smashed the all-time record set 20 years ago in a full-blown Formula 1 car.

There are still many that will never bring themselves to even accept electric cars as the way forward, let alone try and like them. While this is true, it’s also true that cars like Volkswagen’s I.D. R are surely turning heads among even the most hardcore fans of the old-school internal combustion engine. This car has, in the space of little over 12 months, smashed the all-time record at the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb and then did the same around the Nurburgring-Nordschleife with a time fast enough to make it the second fastest car around that track ever. That it also broke the EV record at Goodwood last year seems almost moot given what Dumas did this year with the car.

Do you hear it? It’s the Volkswagen PR machine stomping the ground and announcing far and wide that the halo car of the I.D. family has just annihilated the Nurburgring-Nordschleife circuit in Germany and, in the process, put a new benchmark lap time for EVs. The time? A 6:05.336 after many tryout laps and other tests that have commenced in April. Is it noteworthy? Most certainly. Is it as noteworthy as VW would want you to believe? Not really. Bear with me to see what I’m talking about.

Last year, Volkswagen sent shockwaves around the world when Frenchman Romain Dumas claimed victory and shattered the previous all-time record set by rally legend Sebastien Loeb in 2013 at the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb. Already an overall winner of the Le Mans 24 Hours race and a three-time winner of the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb, Dumas pulled the feat aboard Volkswagen’s cutting-edge I.D.-R, a purpose-built prototype made for the Race to the Clouds. He followed that up by raising the bar on Lord March’s driveway and setting a new EV record during the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Since late last year, we’ve heard that the German giant is after the record and it all came down now. The NIO EP9’s reign is no more.

Records are meant to be broken, right? Well, the outright lap record at the Nurburgring stood for over three decades before Porsche came back to better it this summer. Now, it seems that the record might fall again, sooner than anyone expected, and in the hands of Volkswagen no less. The German manufacturer plans to obliterate the existing record for electric cars with the already impressive I.D.R., but there might be enough juice in the electric prototype to top the overall leaderboard in the process.

The outright record around the northern loop of the Nurburgring was something of a staple in motorsport. For over 30 years, the 6:11.130 lap time set by Germany’s Stefan Bellof was unbeaten. That is, until this summer when Porsche brought their 919 on steroids and, with Timo Bernhard behind the wheel, sliced the fastest lap time by almost a minute. It seems, now, that the new record won’t last for other three-and-a-half decades as the car that proved untouchable at this year’s Pikes Peak International Hillclimb event will take on the Nurburgring next May.

As one of the most astounding racing cars in the world, the electric Volkswagen ID R seems to be gunning for the Nurburgring Lap Record. Sources close to the company reported that Volkswagen actually booked the track for May next year. We suspect it will try to send the slightly retuned electric ID R to that very track in order to slash the electric car record and take the scalp off the Nio EP9. That one managed to lap the Green Hell in 6 minutes 45.9 seconds. It is, obviously, a really fast car. Yet, considering the blistering Volkswagen ID R hill climb run at Pikes Peak where it smashed the previous record by 15 seconds and managed to finish the course in 7min 57.148 seconds, I can only imagine it will do the same at Nurburgring.

As far as modded cars at SEMA go, the Volkswagen Golf RLMS tuned up by APR seems to be one of the most amazing to appear in Las Vegas. The American tuner of everything Audi and Volkswagen took a year and a half to work on the Golf RLMS which evolved from the hot hatch into something you wouldn’t be afraid to put up against the Nissan GT-R R35. I am not joking. Based on the Golf R, this track-worthy Golf RLMS by APR takes a unique approach to hatchback tuning. An approach I am inclined to call - “let’s make the best freaking hot-hatch.”

They’ve done it - and with so well calculated modifications that turned the Golf R into something a true Volkswagen enthusiast may call the Golf R536. Obviously, this is like my throwback to the Golf R400 super-hatch that had been crafted in the concept guise, but did not reach the production. Dieselgate was to be blamed.

Nevertheless, the R400 may be the first thing to pop into my mind upon seeing this, but this modded Golf RLMS by APR is much more than that.

This summer, Volkswagen conquered the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb race with their fantastic I.D. R prototype, which was driven by Romain Dumas up the mountain in a record time of 7:57.148, 16 seconds under Sebastien Loeb’s 5-year-old record.

Motorsport is still a relevant marketing tool and battle-scarred Volkswagen decided the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is the perfect place to showcase its electric technology. The race, which has been going since 1916, sees competitors climb up the 12.42-mile-long course all the way to 14,000 feet. Nowadays, there’s no more dirt at Pikes Peak, but that doesn’t make the challenge itself any less daunting.

The 2019 Volkswagen Jetta has entered the record books after setting the land speed record for its class and displacement at the Bonneville Salt Flats. The Jetta set the record with a run that reached 210.16 mph, breaking the previous record of 208.472 mph. The achievement didn’t come with its share of problems, but ultimately, Volkswagen and the team behind this particular Jetta, THR Manufacturing, managed to troubleshoot their way into the record books, putting a successful lid on an attempt that was months in the making.

In case you hadn’t heard, Volkswagen is pivoting to a greener, more eco-friendly approach to building its cars, offering up plans to produce a host of new all-electric models over the next several years. Spearheading this new direction is a range of vehicles dubbed the I.D. family, which includes concepts like the Buzz minivan and Crozz four-door crossover. However, doesn’t think the I.D. range will be the death of go-fast VW’s - quite the opposite, in fact, as VW is also prepping a little something labeled I.D. for the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado this June. It’s called the I.D. R, and it’s the company’s first-ever all-electric race car, purpose-built to tackle the Race to the Clouds. If ever there was a worthwhile application of VW’s EV tech, this is it. Mind the wing.

Update 08/27/2018: We just came back from Monterey Car Week 2018 and can’t wait to share the images we took of the Volkswagen I.D. R Pike Peak racer. If you thought it looked cool before, check it out up close and personal in our gallery at the bottom of this page!

Established in 2015, the TCR series has become increasingly popular with each season, now being contested by several automakers from Europe and Asia. Volkswagen is one of them, having joined the series with a race-spec version of the Golf GTI in 2016. Following the first full season, in which the Golf GTI TCR won 17 races and two championships, the German firm made improvements to the car in order to continue its good run.

The hatchback’s aerodynamics were updated, while the technology under the hood has also been fine-tuned. The updated car was again used by Liqui Moly Team Engstler, which tackled the German ADAC TCR, TCR Asia, and the TCR Middle East series. The revised GTI also returned to the International TCR series with Team Leopard Racing, which won the championship the previous year. Let’s find out what’s new in the review below.

Continue reading to learn more about the Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR.

Hot on the wheels of the Volkswagen I.D. R’s record-breaking run at the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb, Volkswagen is setting its sights on a new record, this time at the famous Bonneville Salt Flats in Wendover, Utah. As part of its goal of breaking the Southern California Timing Association’s BGC/G class record, the German automaker is preparing a heavily modified version of the 2019 Volkswagen Jetta. Among the upgrades that will be included is a heavily modified version of VW’s 2.0-liter, turbocharged, EA888 four-cylinder engine.