VW to Unveil Pikes Peak Racer on Sunday

Even though it might not feel like it, summer is on its way and with it, the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.

Volkswagen will try to set an overall speed record to the top on June 24, marking the first time since the ‘80s that the brand has had an official presence at the hill climb (though VW hasn’t been entirely absent).

The I.D. R, as it’s being called, is racing to the peak to promote the I.D. range of electric vehicles and the short program is nearly ready to start testing.

This weekend, at the Circuit Pole Mecanique Ales Cevennes in Ales, France, the I.D. R will be fully revealed to the press.

The town is the home of Romain Dumas, the Le Mans-winning driver who is tasked with driving the prototype electric race car into the history books this summer.

The reveal will also mark the start of the car’s testing program. Although it hasn’t been to Pike’s Peak since the ‘80s, when it was less than successful, Volkswagen Motorsport, it must be said, can put together a race car.

Last year, the team’s rallycross cars took the championships in both international rallycross series, while in 2016 their WRC rally team ended on a somewhat diesely high note, winning their fourth WRC championship in as many years.

Dumas, too, brings the fair few motorsports trophies to the table. Long a fixture of the 24 hours of Le Mans, he has won two overall victories at the event (once with Porsche, once with Audi) and another class victory at the race. On top of that, he has won Pikes Peak before.

You can watch the unveiling on Volkswagen Motorsport’s Facebook this Sunday, the 22 at 11 am Eastern Time.

The post VW to Unveil Pikes Peak Racer on Sunday appeared first on VWVortex.

from VWVortex https://ift.tt/2F0gd0s
via IFTTT

Comments

Project SportWagen: Going Stage 2 with APR

When we last left you, the humble little SportWagen was fresh from the development process with our friends at AWE Tuning, sporting a new downpipe, exhaust and intake, allowing things to breathe a bit easier. The car sounded great, but there was no getting around the fact that our wagon was still quite, well, slow. While we realize that nothing we do to the Golf SportWagen at this point will make it a race car, we still felt compelled to do something . To put it bluntly, we had a fever, and the only cure was more power. Flash forward a few hours, and we found ourselves at Waterfest, staring down APR’s palatial spread and the numerous tuned vehicles surrounding it. Earlier in the year, APR had hinted to us that their 1.8 TSI files would be quite impressive, and based on what they were able to do with the 2.0 TSI found in the new GTI and our time in their Golf R, we knew it’d be worth the wait. So with this in mind, we lined our G...

Project Golf SportWagen- Intro

I’ve never really been one for SUVs and crossovers. The current offerings aren’t the body-on-frame, go-anywhere specialty tools I remember from my youth, and what they lack in capability, they also lack in on-road performance. The current crop isn’t terribly good at handling or being efficient, which in my opinion are major components of our ideal driving experience. So when it comes to space or utility, I usually look for something of the wagon variety- and it seems that I’m not alone. We hit quite a few shows around the east coast each summer, and we see modified Jetta SportWagens at nearly every event. Even amongst common consumers, these cars are highly sought-after. They don’t depreciate much, making even early Mk 5 2.5 versions expensive in comparison to other Jettas or Golfs of the same vintage. This year, Volkswagen launched their latest SportWagen, which is now billed as a Golf. In many ways, this latest SportWagen is the best yet and it has certai...

Volkswagen Group Records Best Ever First-Half-of-Year Sales

With 5.5 million vehicles in customer hands after the first six months of 2018, the Volkswagen Group is seeing the best performance of its history. Group deliveries increased significantly in all core regions,” said Fred Kappler, head of sales for the Group. “Our core brands recorded strong growth in the first half year.” For the year-to-date, all of Volkswagen’s brands had sales bumps. MAN, SEAT, and Skoda led the sales charge with performances 24%, 17% and 11% better than the previous year. The big sellers, too, had strong sales periods, with Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Audi, and Volkswagen sales rising 3.5%, 4.5% and 6.3% respectively. That last figure is particularly good new for the board, since Volkswagen alone sold more than 3 million vehicles in the first half of 2018. As Kappler stated, the numbers are equally good when you break sales down by region. Brazil and Russia were the most improved markets (22% and 20%, respectively), while strong sales in Europe and China (u...

Vorderman Volkswagen

Search This Blog