Some Crazy engineers at VW are tired of the fact that everyone seems to have forgotten that it was VW with its Golf GTI that started this Hot Hatchback business,
So while their serious counterparts at Audi were unveiling the TT speedster they showed off this monster at the renowned Wörthersee Tour, an Austrian celebration of hot-hatch madness
This particular expression of Teutonic might is powered by the VW Phaeton's 6.0-litre W12. mounted in the MIDDLE, behind the driver.
Yes, this is the maddest Golf you'll ever see. This particular Twin Turbo W12 puts out 641bhp and 553lb ft of torque, driving the rear wheels only
It's enough for a 3.7 second sprint to 62mph(100Km/H) and a top speed of 184mph(325 km/h) if you keep those custom made "Detroit" 19-inch wheels spinning long enough.
"Our greatest challenge'', says Klaus Bischoff, Director of Volkswagen Design, ''was to provide the six-liter mid-engine with sufficient air, without significantly changing how the GTi looked in comparison to the 'civilian' version. In addition, provisions had to be made for sufficient downforce at the rear axle on such a fast type of car. But for aesthetic reasons we did not want to put an enormous rear spoiler on the car.'' In both cases a trick helped.
To deal with air intake the design team simply made the rear windows turn inward. This created two ducts between the windows and the C pillars, on the left and right, through which air flows for engine cooling. The rest of the cooling air comes from the front via the gigantic radiators and the ducts connected to them, as well as on the sides via air inlets on the side skirts.
To create downforce on the rear wheels without a WRX type spoiler, they designed the roof as part of an enormous diffuser that supplies sufficient downforce.
You see a spoiler is actually a wing, it works just like a normal aircraft wing and manipulates the air flowing around it to create lift, which is what allows a plane to take off, turn it upside-down and the force pushes the object attached to the wing down instead of up, thus creating downforce. A car spoiler is just a wing turned upside-down, but most of the little pieces of metal added to boots are just for show, F1 and other High-Speed motorsports are where spoilers are really used
The roof of the GTi is made of carbon-fiber and it directs the air over and under the small rear spoiler in a way that allows it to achieve sufficient downforce without it being too big
Don't go expecting any Golf W12 on sale, though. This was strictly a one-off
