The new hot Golf has been given the ‘RS’ treatment of more power and less weight, then set loose on the Nurburgring where it, for now, is the front-wheel drive King of the Ring.
Not willing to have the limelight in hot hatchbacks snatched by its rivals for too long, Volkswagen has taken the crown for fastest front-wheel drive car around the Nurburgring Nordschliefe with the 228kW Golf GTI Clubsport S.
Not that long ago, Honda set the fastest time in their equally front driven Civic Type R, snatching the previously held record set by the Seat Leon Cupra 280 – which by extension, must have peeved Volkswagen, who owns the Spanish automaker.
The GTI Clubsport S set a time of 7:49:21, beating the previous record by 1.4 seconds. The Golf had gone through some modifications, however, before the record run was possible.
These measures were mostly centred weight savings, mostly brought about by the removal of the car’s rear seats, sound dampening material, and even swapping out the standard 7-speed DSG transmission for a good old 6-speed manual. Yes, the shift times would be slower, but the removal of an extra 20kg would meant the car would be quicker overall.
And make sure the record setting car had could more easily cope with the added pressures of track driving, Volkswagen also fitted it with uprated brakes.
From the outside, there’s not that much to differentiate the Golf GTI Clubsport S from the regular Clubsport, but more keen observers would notice the larger diameter twin exhausts, S badging throughout, larger 19-inch “Pretoria” wheels, and the standard fit Michelin Pilot Sport Cub 2 semi-slick tyres.
A surprisingly little amount of work was put into the actual suspension components of the car, although there was work on the car’s front axle, but engineers poured over software optimisation to the adaptive dampers, calibrating them to suit the Nurburgring’s quite varied and unique demands.
The actual ‘sweet spot’ setting will be dubbed the ‘Nurburgring setting’ as part of the Individual Mode of selectable driving setting presets. The Clubsport S’ power output is, naturally, significantly higher than that of the regular Golf GTI with its 2.0-litre turbo four-cylinder engine pumping out 228kW and 380Nm through turbocharger hardware and mapping upgrades as well as a newer exhaust system.
Volkswagen says that only 400 examples of the limited edition GTI Clubsport S will be made for us mortals to own.
In Australia, the Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport comes in June as the GTI 40 Years Edition as HSV already has their squatter’s rights to the moniker. That then invites the logical assumption that, should a few examples of the Clubsport S make their way to our shores, it would be as the GTI 40 Years…S?
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