Julio Cezar Kronbauer's Blog: Volkswagen

NEW VOLKSWAGEN GOLF GTI CLUBSPORT S BREAKS NÜRBURGRING LAP RECORD, MAKES WÖRTHERSEE DEBUT

The most powerful Golf GTI ever breaks the lap record for front-wheel-drive cars on the Nordschleife, with a time of 07:49:21

Wolfsburg/Reifnitz, May 2016. The Golf GTI Clubsport S is the most powerful ever version of the Golf GTI and was built to celebrate 40 years of the iconic hot hatchback. With German racing driver Benny Leuchter (28) at the wheel, the car has just smashed the existing lap record for front-wheel-drive production cars on the Nürburgring Nordschleife, with a time of 7 minutes, 49.21 seconds. This exclusive new vehicle, based on the Golf GTI Clubsport, makes its world premiere at the GTI event at Lake Wörthersee (4-7 May). The hard performance numbers of this new GTI are truly impressive: a power output of 228 kW/310 PS; 280 pound-feet of torque between 1,700 and 5.300 rpm; 0 to 62 mph acceleration in 5.8 seconds; a top speed of 162 mph; and an unladen weight (including the driver and luggage) that has been reduced to 2,998 pounds. But the raw figures don’t tell the whole story, as the record lap time around the Nordschleife demonstrates how fast this car actually is. The Golf GTI Clubsport S has an exclusive setting for the most demanding racetrack in the world, which can be accessed using the driving profile selector. This is possible because the car is fitted as standard with the individually configurable Dynamic Chassis Control (DCC) and a driving profile selector. In the ‘Individual’ driving profile, the engineers have developed a setting that is fine-tuned to suit the unique conditions of the Nürburgring. Over and above that, the Comfort, Normal and Race settings are also available. The driver can still adjust the settings in the Individual profile, as usual, and can revert to the Nürburgring setting by resetting the Individual profile on the touchscreen menu. This unique configuration switches the Sound, Engine and Steering parameters in the Race profile as well as DCC to Comfort. However, in this instance an entirely different group of settings is hidden behind this option, instead of the normal Race and Comfort settings.