When you think of Volkswagen, you might think of a bunch of fairly ordinary family cars. The German automaker is much more known for making sensible family cars and commuters than anything else these days. But, there was a time when VW was a bit crazier. Its engineers were allowed to run wild and come up with some of the most mental ideas imaginable. One of those was a concept car that could very well be considered the king of hot hatches. It had performance that could rival supercars, and it was built in a shockingly short amount of time.
The Volkswagen Golf GTI W12 650 Is A Supercar-Beating Hot Hatch
MPW57, via Wikimedia Commons
What would happen if you took the concept of a hot hatch to its most extreme? Well, that’s what Volkswagen managed to do with the Golf GTI W12 650. From the outside, it might look like a slightly untastefully modified Mark 5 Golf GTI. But, under the skin, it’s an absolute engineering marvel with serious power. Instead of the 2-liter turbocharged inline-4 the Mark 5 Golf GTI came with, it has the 6-liter twin-turbocharged W12 from the first-generation Bentley Continental GT.
This insane hot hatch had an output of 650 hp and 531 lb-ft of torque. That was enough to give the Golf GTI W12 650 properly supercar-rivalling levels of performance. It could sprint from 0-62 mph in just 3.7 seconds, and go onto a top speed of 202 mph.
How Volkswagen Got The W12 In
Perhaps the biggest engineering challenge of the whole build for this car is how VW’s engineers managed to get that big W12 into a Golf chassis. They did manage to do it successfully, but it required a lot of work. It needed to be made lower and wider than the standard Golf GTI to accommodate everything. The engine also had to be placed in the middle, where the rear seats would normally be in a regular front-engined Golf. This turned it into something not too different to classic Group B homologation specials like the MG Metro 6R4 or the Renault 5 Turbo, or more modern interpretations of the same thing like the Renault Clio V6.
It Was Built In Only 8 Weeks!
Perhaps the most impressive thing about the Volkswagen Golf GTI W12 650, though, is how quickly it took VW’s engineers to build it and get it running. They managed to get the entire build completed in just 8 weeks! This included all the major chassis modifications that needed to be done, as well as getting that huge W12 engine in and properly connected.
While it’s incredible that VW’s engineers managed to build this car in such a short space of time, they did end up cutting some corners to achieve it. Quite a few of the car’s less important features just didn’t work. The air conditioning system didn’t work, as the controls were never connected up. The hazard lights didn’t function, and neither did the entertainment system. The paddle shifters on the steering wheel weren’t connected to the transmission as well, meaning that you couldn’t have the fun of manually shifting like a racing driver.
It Was Only A Prototype
Bruno Kussler Marques, via Wikimedia Commons
As you’d maybe expect for something this crazy, the Volkswagen Golf GTI W12 650 was never meant to be a production car. It was only ever supposed to be a concept car, showing off how far Volkswagen’s engineers could go. It’s a bit of a shame that it was never given at least a limited production run, though. The engineering behind it was sound, and it was fully drivable. It wouldn’t have taken much more tinkering to get everything working properly, like it should on a production-ready car, either. Still, it’s such a niche car that maybe only a handful of enthusiasts would want to buy it.
Where Is The W12 Golf GTI Now?
After it was initially shown to the world, the Volkswagen Golf GTI 650 seemed to disappear forever. It certainly isn’t talked about very much by Volkswagen anymore. The only time many of us had even heard of it was due to it getting a featured road test on Top Gear during the Clarkson, Hammond & May era. Thankfully, that hasn’t been the case. The car is still owned by Volkswagen, and it occasionally still makes public appearances. When it does appear in public now, it’s usually on a static display.
There don’t seem to be any more recent records of the Golf GTI W12 650 doing any proper high-speed runs. That’s a bit disappointing, as it could be really cool to see it get let loose again. Maybe that time will come one day, but for the moment, it’s basically a garage queen for VW’s heritage collection.
Other Crazy Volkswagen Concepts
Via: HD Cars
The Golf GTI W12 650 is far from the only crazy concept car Volkswagen has let loose into the world over the years. While it was under Ferdinand Piëch’s leadership, Volkswagen became notorious for creating some of the most ridiculous cars (and engines!) the automotive world had ever seen. Unfortunately, much like the Golf GTI W12 650, many of these have ended up fading into obscurity. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t worth mentioning, though!
Volkswagen W12
You might have wondered where the W12 engine in the Golf GTI W12 650 originally came from. While the version of it that the GTI W12 650 came from the first iteration of the Bentley Continental GT, the idea for the W12 engine goes back further than that. It actually goes all the way back to the late ’90s, when VW started to put out a series of W12 concept cars. There were three of them, and they were all powered by naturally aspirated versions of the W12. The first W12 to be built was the Syncro back in 1997. This was a coupe with a 5.6-liter version of the W12 that produced 414 bhp. VW enthusiasts will recognize the syncro name attached to it, and that’s because it had all-wheel drive. A roadster version of the Syncro followed a year later and was mechanically identical.
A couple of years later, in 2001, VW created a higher-performance coupe version of the W12 called the Nardo. Named after the legendary Nardo Ring test track in Italy, this had a larger 6-liter version of the W12 that produced 591 bhp and 458 lb-ft of torque. This gave the W12 Nardo a 0-62 time of around 3.5 seconds and a very impressive top speed of nearly 222 mph.
Volkswagen GX3
Perhaps one of the oddest designs Volkswagen has ever made, the GX3 was conceived as part of Project Moonraker. This was a project thought up by Stefan Liske, who was the Director of Group Product Strategy at Volkswagen for a time.
First shown at the 2006 Greater Los Angeles Auto Show, it was a super-lightweight, open-wheeled 3-wheeler sports car that was powered by a 1.6-liter inline-4 engine from a Lupo GTI. This engine only produced around 123 hp and 112 lb-ft of torque. But, since the GX3 was so light, this was really all the power it needed. It was claimed to be able to go from 0-62 in 5.7 seconds and have a top speed of 125 mph. To really hammer home that this was supposed to be a raw, lightweight sports car, it had a 6-speed manual transmission.
The GX3 got a very positive response from the public, and Lotus was even brought in to help refine the chassis for a future production version. But, it never ended up going beyond the prototype stage. VW thought that a lot of revisions would need to be done to the design. Some of this was because it had concerns over how safe the original design would be.
Volkswagen GTI Roadster Vision Gran Turismo
The GTI Roadster Vision Gran Turismo is another Volkswagen concept that stayed strictly a concept. That’s because it was designed for a video game! Sony sent out an invitation to VW to design a car to celebrate 15 years of Gran Turismo, and this car is what it came up with. The GTI Roadster Vision Gran Turismo is a carbon-fibre-bodied sports car, powered by a 3-liter twin-turbocharged VR6 engine that produced 496 hp and 413 lb-ft of torque. This power went to all four wheels through VW’s 7-speed DSG dual-clutch automatic transmission. VW claimed the GTI Roadster Vision Gran Turismo could go from 0-62 mph in 3.6 seconds and onto a top speed of 190 mph.
Unfortunately, you can’t drive one of these in real life. But, if you own a copy of Gran Turismo 6, Gran Turismo Sport or Gran Turismo 7, you can drive this car in the game! It lines up alongside the other cool concept cars exclusively created for Gran Turismo, and it certainly looks and feels the part.
Source: Volkswagen.
