How do you plan to celebrate your 50th birthday? A nice cake? Lunch with your family? A few pints with some old friends? Well, Volkswagen has all of those pedestrian plans beat - for the Golf’s 50th birthday, Volkswagen is hitting the Nurburgring to take on the most fearsome 24-hour race of them all.
Souped-up Clubsport racer
Contesting the Nurburgring 24hrs this year will be a specially souped-up VW Golf GTI Clubsport, whose 2.0-litre turbo engine has been tickled up to a power output of 348hp, up by 48hp from the standard, road-going Clubsport version.
The race will also be an opportunity for VW to show off the new road-going Clubsport GTI, which gets the same round of updates as the standard Golf and Golf GTI models - an updated interior with a big new touchscreen, the addition of ChatGPT artificial intelligence in the voice control system, new lights, new steering wheel, and some styling and aerodynamic tweaks. The GTI Clubsport will also get the option of a new set of 19-inch ‘Queenstown’ alloy wheels, and there’s also the choice of 19-inch ‘Warmenau’ forged alloys, which weigh a mere 8kg per corner.
The Clubsport GTI will also now come with a special setting for its DCC adaptive suspension dampers and electronic front differential. It’s actually called the ‘Special’ setting (nice) and has been tuned specifically for the Nurburgring Nordschleife, with trick damper control to account for the ‘Ring’s bumpy surface and massive elevation changes.
More power for the road-going Clubsport?
Will the Clubsport GTI get more power, too? It’s possible, but given that the incoming new Golf R is expected to have around 330hp, there’s not a lot of wiggle room for the Clubsport. It certainly won’t get the 348hp engine from the N24 racer - that’s reserved exclusively for the race, and will actually be fuelled by a more sustainable petrol, using a 20 per cent blend of bio-fuel, dubbed E20.
Volkswagen reckons that the E20 fuel trims the race car’s CO2 emissions by as much as 40 per cent. It’s also extremely knock-resistant, allowing for higher compression ratios and meaning that the turbocharger can run a bit hotter.
E20 fills the 100-litre endurance racing tank, while the rest of the Clubsport GTI gets a massive rear wing and a special camouflage racing colour to celebrate the Golf’s 50th anniversary. The whole race car weighs just 1,170kg and has 450Nm of torque, so expect it to be wicked-quick coming off the ‘Ring’s almost-countless corners.
Live streaming
The VW team is run by Max Kruse Racing and features German TCR touring car ace Benny Leucther alongside Swedish driver Johan Kristoffersson and two Nurburgring specialists Nico Otto and Heiko Hammel. The car will be equipped with a special racing camera, so you’ll be able to follow its progress online (and the N24 is live-streamed on YouTube anyway, with commentary from Radio Le Mans).
There will also be 50th birthday celebrations in the N24 Classic event ahead of the main race, with the KWL team (also celebrating its 50th) entering three classic Golf GTIs - a Golf GTI 16S Oettinger (Group 4) from 1981 that has an output of 208hp; a 1978 Golf GTI Kamei (Group 2) with 183hp; and a third classic model, wrapped in the GTI camouflage design with the ‘50 years of Golf’ logo, which is a 1980 Golf GTI from Group 2 with an output of 184hp.