VW - unsportsmanlike my ass
08/29/2012
How sporty is a VW? Was a GTI the first sports car? Nonsense, even before the first Beetle rolled off the production line, the Berlin-Rome car, the original idea for the later Porsche, was sporty on four wheels. Motorsport has a long tradition at VW and can now be viewed in detail at the Volkswagen AutoMuseum.
July 10, 2012 saw the launch of the new special exhibition at the Volkswagen AutoMuseum. "Motorsport with Volkswagen" documents how racing has accompanied Volkswagen since its beginnings: from the Berlin-Rome car of the 1930s to the Polo R WRC, which will be competing in the World Rally Championship next year.
Back in the late 1930s, Porsche built the Berlin-Rome car for the long-distance rally of the same name on a Beetle platform. However, this never took place due to the outbreak of war.
The reconstruction of Paul Ernst Strähle's Mille Miglia Beetleand a dragster Beetle, which once competed in the legendary quarter-mile acceleration races, are representative of the numerous private engagements with Volkswagen in the 1950s and 1960s.
Volkswagen's official involvement in motorsport began with Formula Vau, based on the technology of the Volkswagen Beetle. Well-known racing drivers, such as Niki Lauda, emerged from it. The exhibition shows one of the oldest so-called "form cars" still in existence today, which was built in the USA in the mid-1960s.
Following this involvement, Volkswagen continued to develop its motorsport activities: one-make cups and Formula 3 as an engine supplier were the next stages. The championship car of Kris Nissen, the former Director of Volkswagen Motorsport GmbH, bears witness to this in the special exhibition.
In terms of technology, Volkswagen Motorsport today relies on innovative, economical and environmentally friendly drive concepts. Examples include the 2.5-liter TDI engine in the Race Touareg for use in the Dakar Rally and the natural gas variants for the Scirocco R Cup and the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring. The Race Touareg, which clinched victory in 2010 and 2011, faces the first Volkswagen to win the rally in Africa back in 1980, the VW Iltis.
Volkswagen also celebrated successes in other rally championships from the 1970s to the mid-1980s: first place with the so-called Rheila Golf in the 1981 German Rally Championship and first place with the Triumph-Adler Golf in Group A in the 1986 World Rally Championship.
The special exhibition "Motorsport with Volkswagen" at the Volkswagen AutoMuseum looks back on over 60 years of motorsport with Volkswagen and will be on display until September 30.
