Volkswagen Motorsport has for the first time, built their first racing car that’s based on the Mk7 Golf. The concept race car shares the same turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine of the R‘s, but is tuned to produce over 330 horsepower and 410 Nm of torque!
This seemingly track-ready Golf is built in compliance with the Touringcar Racer International Series’ (TCR) regulations and is created to help Volkswagen evaluate a potential customer racing programme for the 2016 season onwards.
Director of Volkswagen Motorsport, Jost Capito said, “The newly created TCR category provides a promising platform for customer racing – on a national and international level. With exciting races, production-based technology and reasonable costs, it offers a new outlook for private racing teams.”
So, what does the TCR-spec Golf entail? Several obvious tweaks, really. Like the multi-spoke 18-inch racing wheels, a chassis that’s 400mm wider than a stock Golf, an obscenely large aerodynamically designed front and rear bumper finished off with a carbon fibre rear spoiler. Being a full blown racer, the cabin comes with a racing seat with head protectors, racing safety cell and a safety tank that adheres to FIA’s regulations.
Despite getting the Golf R’s engine (co-developed with SEAT), this Golf TCR is a front-wheel drive machine that is fitted with a six-speed DSG gearbox with paddle shifters mounted on the steering wheel. As it is right now, there are no performance figures made available, but it will easily crush the Golf R’s century sprint time of 5.0 seconds by quite a margin.
To accelerate development, the concept race car will be put through competitive conditions in the remaining races at the International TCR series. Two of the Golf TCRs will be managed by the highly experienced Liqui Moly Team Engstler.
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