Volkswagen’s Golf supercar

VOLKSWAGEN generally pulls the covers from something outlandish at the annual Wörthersee fan festival in Austria, and this year was no exception.

How does a maniacal 370kW/650kW Golf V6 concept racer for the road sound? Volkswagen has called it the GTI Design Vision concept, and says it could theoretically roll up to a racing series tomorrow.

Wörthersee is something of a Mecca for Volkswagen enthusiasts, and it appears the Design Vision concept is one for them. Don’t expect to see anything quite like this on the road in the near future.

Under the nose sits a 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6, perhaps a nod to roadgoing Golf V6s of the past, which feeds power to all four wheels via a DSG dual-clutch transmission.

It’s enough to launch the car from zero to 100km/h in just 3.9 seconds, according to Volkswagen, while massive front and rear discs (380mm/356mm) with red callipers are employed to scrup off the new-found pace.

The outrageously styled concept has a far more aggressive stance than the regular roadgoing GTI – it’s 15mm shorter, 71mm wider and 57mm lower – and gets a sinister new nose design, bulging haunches and rather radical racing-style cockpit.