Skip to main content

Quicktake: Ferdinand Piech’s 2001 Beetle RSI

Let it never be said that Volkswagen doesn’t know how to treat its guests. When they invited me over to Germany for the Beetle Sunshine Tour, it was to drive Beetles. And drive I did. From the many Beetles, new and old, that I drove, by far the best was the New Beetle RSi.

For those who don’t remember, the New Beetle RSi was a special edition, only 250 of which were made between 2001 and 2003. The car was widened by three inches, its suspension was tuned, and it sent 225 hp and 234 lb-ft torque from the VR6 stuffed under its hood to all four wheels. Sound familiar?

IMG_20160819_152950556

Yes, the Beetle RSi is basically an R32 before such a thing existed. That said, there are some differences. When the R32 came out it was billed as the pinnacle of VW performance, safety, and luxury and it’s that last item in the list where the RSi differs. The RSi has Recaro bucket sears, hand-crank windows, and carbon fiber sprinkled around the cabin. The seats, after an hour or so become catastrophically uncomfortable. The radio was locked and I never figured out how to turn it on, and the noise in the cabin was deafening, but all of this means nothing when you’re in car that’s so much damn fun to drive.

The throttle, oh God the throttle. It’s so responsive, so blippy, so well connected to that throaty VR6 that it feels prescient. Gears are selected via a tiny, notchy gear lever that’s so much fun to use that you start making up reasons to shift.

The VR6, meanwhile, pulls well when you put your foot down, not that I really taxed it all that much. Getting onto the autobahn, though, is stupid fun. The 4Motion all-wheel drive system gets you plenty of Gs around the on-ramp and the tuned suspension and 18” OZ Racing wheels give you all the confidence you need to drive this one-off car without fear.

I say one-off, because this Beetle RSi, number 002 of 250, is blue, unlike all the other RSis, which are silver. That may seem like a mildly interesting, but ultimately unimportant detail, but it comes as a result of a request from a pretty special person. It was none other than Ferdinand Piech, who led VW to its current global position, for whom the car was built and it was painted blue because, apparently, all of his other cars were too. Now it belongs to Volkswagen Classics, who take care of it as one of their many historically significant VWs.

When it came out, the Beetle RSi cost the equivalent of about $80,000. This blue one isn’t for sale, but if you want a silver one, expect to pay somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 euros. Although getting it back to America would be a difficulty since they were never sold here. Canadians, though, can now import them and should. It’s a silly, expensive, well built car, that’s a serious amount of fun and the wider world ought to have access to it.

Design Studie New Beetle RSi 2000

The post Quicktake: Ferdinand Piech’s 2001 Beetle RSI appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex http://ift.tt/2cmSOhc
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Watch: The Story of the Ads that Made VW Big in America

The ads for the original Beetle are almost as famous and well-loved as the Beetle itself. Looking back now it’s easy to forget, though, just how easily things could have wrong. A new short from Dial M Films tracks the history of those early Volkswagen ads that sold America on the people’s car. The story, of course, begins with the visionary agency that made the ads: Doyle Dane Bernach (DDB). As a popular agency for Jewish products, no agency was more aware of the implications of Volkswagen, and no one, it seems, was more skeptical of the brand than DDB. “Remember Those Great Volkswagen Ads?” from Dial M Films on Vimeo . William Bernbach, though, was adament that the firm take the client, probably as a way of attracting other lucrative automotive clients. Saddled with a client that he didn’t want, art director Helmut Krone says in the film that he originally came up with ads that were all wrong. Krone tried to do what other manufacturers did and was intent on selling the Beetle ...

Watch: The Stig Drives (nearly) Seven Generations of Golf GTI

With Volkswagen announcing “major” updates to the Golf, it seems an appropriate time to look back on what we’ve had so far. And who better to guide us through the rich history of the most popular European car ever made than Ben Collins, the former Stig? Some say he’s never met a GTI he doesn’t love, and that he can’t grow any of his own facial hair. All we know is … Ben Collins is actually a pretty solid presenter. Working his way through seven generations of the GTI (skipping over the Mk6) Collins tells us a little bit about each one and matches each mark to its corresponding facial hair craze. The Mk1 GTI for instance, is light and quick, but can lose traction under hard acceleration (in heavy rain). Despite that, Collins calls the Mk1 a “pure gem.” The Mk4, meanwhile, is a powerful return to form after the perhaps too sensible Mk3. Collins ends in the only way he could, with the Mk7, which accelerates faster than a Lamborghini Countach and is all kinds of wonderful. Watch, ...

Volkswagen Golf GTE Wins Top Honor at the 2015 Business Techies Awards

Golf GTE wins Green category in the 2015 BusinessCar Fleet Technology awards Judges praised the Golf GTE for its performance, ease of use and economy Golf GTE launched earlier this year with plug-in hybrid technology – priced from £33,755 204 PS performance combined with CO 2  emissions of just 39 g/km Volkswagen has added to its growing list of 2015 automotive industry accolades by winning the Green category in the annual BusinessCar Fleet Technology Awards – the Techies. The prestigious title was awarded to Volkswagen for the Golf GTE, an innovative plug-in hybrid that combines sporty dynamics with exceptional fuel economy and low CO 2  emissions. Now in their seventh year, the Techies are judged by both BusinessCar’s experienced editorial panel with help from TRL’s technology expert. The industry’s only technology-specific awards, the BusinessCar Techies reward the use of technology to make business car fleet operations easier, cheaper, cleaner, safer and more straig...