You won’t see it running in FIA WRC, though
The relationship between Volkswagen Motorsport and WRC might be out of date, but that hasn’t stopped Wolfsburg from building a new Polo GTI R5 rally racer.
VW’s motorsport division is back into rallying but not as a works team, as some of you might know already. Back in 2016, VW decided to end its WRC spell – blame Dieselgate for that – after securing 12 titles overall.
There was one problem, though. They’ve already developed the 2017 VW Polo WRC, so they tried to homologate the race car nonetheless, hoping a private customer would sponsor the project. And it worked.
That’s why we can now talk about the 2018 VW Polo GTI R5. It features a 1.6-liter turbocharged, direct-injected, four-cylinder powerplant making 272 PS (268 hp) and 400 Nm (296 lb-ft) of torque sent to all four wheels through a five-speed racing gearbox and permanent all-wheel drive system.
VW says the Polo GTI WRC can run from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 4.1 seconds, helped of course by its low weight of just 1,320 kilos.
Homologation is scheduled for the summer of 2018, with deliveries expected to kick off right after those formalities.
Here's a piece on how the 2018 VW Polo got here: an evolution through the years.