Skip to main content

The Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 WRC Car Is the Hot Hatch You Wish You Could Buy

[See image gallery at www.vwvortex.com]

This is Volkswagen’s latest World Rally Championship rally racer. A 272 hp, turbocharged four-cylinder all-wheel drive Polo.

The Polo GTI R5 starts with a standard production Polo chassis. But it doesn’t stay standard for long. It starts with an FIA spec roll cage. Then there’s that engine. The 1.6L four-cylinder makes 272 hp and 295 lb-ft of torque. The gearbox is a five-speed racing unit instead of the dual-clutch setup of the stock Polo GTI.

The stage ready Polo is lower, wider, and it has a massive rear wing and front splitter. It looks like a caricature of a Polo, but Volkswagen Motorsport Director Sven Smeets said that “the close relationship to the road-going Polo GTI is unmistakable.” In that they have the same name, and roughly the same profile.

The GTI R5 can hit 60 mph in 4.1 seconds, it can probably get close to that number on any surface you’d care to try it.

The newest WRC Polo won’t be run as a factory car. VW ended their factory effort after the championship-winning 2016 season. But this car will be sold to privateer teams. The car has been tested on roads in France and is headed to Great Britain this month.

The latest rally effort from Wolfsburg is expected to get FIA homologation this summer, with deliveries and the first rally appearance expected late next year.

The post The Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 WRC Car Is the Hot Hatch You Wish You Could Buy appeared first on VWVortex.



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

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Saying Goodbye to the CC V6

For all its size and its global reach, Volkswagen is still, in many ways, a deeply human company. There was, for instance, the Bugatti Veyron an ego project if ever there was one. Then the purchase of Ducati, a move most called folly. And then there was the Phaeton, the Volkswagen that most folks can’t afford. Not only were these moves all strange, I’m sure that they made VW’s accountants furious. None of them made good business sense, but they were all deeply interesting and they all are evidence of the heart that beats at the center of VW. Among these follies is the CC, a car that everyone agrees is rakishly handsome, but that no one really wanted to buy. The car couldn’t last, but the world is brighter for its having been in it. With the approach debut of the Arteon, it seems like a good time to look back on its sadly departing predecessor. The version I drove, because I live in Canada, is a V6 Wolfsburg Edition, which apparently isn’t available in the States. Nor is the V6, not as...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mitsubishi admits it lied about MPG ratings for all vehicles in Japan

Filed under: Government/Legal , Green , Mitsubishi , Fuel Efficiency , Japan Mitsubishi says its shady fuel-economy test practices may have been used on all vehicles it sells and has sold in Japan. Continue reading Mitsubishi admits it lied about MPG ratings for all vehicles in Japan Mitsubishi admits it lied about MPG ratings for all vehicles in Japan originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 11 May 2016 12:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments from Autoblog Volkswagen http://ift.tt/21X3bHv
Post a Comment
Read more

More 3.0-Liter TDI Settlement Details Expected by January 31

Volkswagen and the TDI Plaintiff’s Steering Committee were in court today for another status conference following the agreement in principal reached earlier this week. Little new information was given at the conference held before Judge Charles Breyer today, but the court ordered the parties to develop a formal settlement agreement, class action notices, and a class notice plan by January 31, 2017. For now, though, owners still don’t know how much to expect in compensation. Elizabeth Cabraser, lead Counsel for the Plaintiff’s Steering Committee reaffirmed in a statement today that the compensation would be “substantial.” The potential cost to Volkswagen is widely reported to exceed $1 billion, though, with an additional $225 million going into an environmental trust to help offset excess emissions. Buy back offers are still only expected for the oldest 20,000 of the roughly 80,000 VW Group vehicles sold in America with the 3.0-liter TDI engine. Those vehicles are mostly SUVs, like ...
Post a Comment
Read more