Volkswagen has a new hot hatch that’s almost ready for production, and it’s the most powerful GTI yet. Meet the Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR concept car, a road version of Volkswagen’s IMSA race car that’ll go 164 mph if you ask Volkswagen to get rid of the car’s speed limiter.
While the car as we know it slowly dwindles away in North America, everyone else seems to be having fun—including with the Golf GTI TCR, the new top of the GTI range that’s based off of GTI TCR race cars like the one that competes in the IMSA Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge.
It’s just a concept for now, but Volkswagen wants “to make this GTI vision come true” by the end of the year. Volkswagen didn’t specify where the car would be sold, except that it won’t come to the U.S.
The GTI TCR’s 2.0-liter turbo engine will make 286 horsepower and 273 lb-ft of torque, with a standard seven-speed dual-clutch transmission and power going to the front wheels. The car comes from the factory with an electronic limiter that caps speeds at 155 mph, but you can squeeze out a little more to get to a top speed of 164 mph by asking Volkswagen to get rid of it.
Even though this is just a concept, Volkswagen said there will be a package on the new GTI TCR that has the option of 19-inch wheels instead of the standard 18-inch ones and sport suspension settings. Any version of the car will project a TCR logo on the ground, so you can show all of your friends just how much you love those #racing #oriented #brands. (TCR stands for “Touring Class Racing,” if anyone asks about your brands. You’re welcome.)
That is, unless you’re in America, where you’ll just have to settle for “sport” SUVs covered in plastic cladding that literally no one asked to become a thing.