VW puts 641bhp Golf on the road

Some may have thought that the 247bhp R32 version was going to be the pinnacle of the Volkswagen Golf range. Think again. How about a 641bhp version that gets from 0-100km/h in 3.7 seconds?

After the massive engineering feat involved in creating the 1,001bhp Bugatti Veyron, it seems as if the technical wizards at VW felt they needed a new challenge. When VW took over the legendary car brand, bosses set the engineers a task to build a supercar that led the world. The end result was the fastest, most powerful, and most expensive street-legal, full production car in the world, with a proven top speed of over 400km/h.

With a 0-100km/h time of 2.5 seconds, the Veyron is powered by a W16 8-litre engine featuring no fewer than four turbochargers. How do you follow that? Someone with time on their hands then came up with the idea of creating the fastest and most powerful Golf ever produced. Along comes the VW Golf W12-650. It's only a one-off - built for a VW modified car show in Austria - but it shows what lessons have been learned from the Bugatti experience, and the level of technological know-how available at VW these days.

Powered by the W12 6-litre engine block - in reality two V6 engines laid beside each other - it also features two turbochargers, creating a total output of 641bhp (the name comes from the 650PS figure). In performance terms it sets times to match Ferrari's 599 or Porsche's 911 Turbo.

To get the engine to fit, VW engineers had to remove the rear seats and fit the enormous block behind the front seats.

The mid-mounted unit fits on a one-off aluminium subframe and the engine's cooling system is fed by a pair of side-mounted cooling vents placed beside the wheel arches.

Other features include a carbon fibre roof and rear-mounted radiators. Sadly there are no plans for this car to enter mainstream production, and the purchase price for this one-off (possibly close to seven figures) would be far above the budget of even the most ardent Golf owner.