Holy hell! Those nutters at VW have sure thrown out some wild stuff in years gone by, but this is way, way up there on our list of ‘must haves’ – the GTi W12 650

Using a bit of engineering we last saw in the mega-buck Bugatti Veyron, the Dub boys have slotted a W12 (as opposed to V12) into the back of the Golf, helping it to reach 0–100 in just 3.7sec with a top speed of over 202mph. Of course, the question on everyone’s lips is, ‘is it 4WD?’, and while the answer is no, RWD is certainly much more welcome than front.

The 6L back-bencher puts out a whopping 650hp and 553lb.ft of torque thanks no doubt to the two snails hung off either side. It’s mounted lengthwise between the front seats in a midship configuration and comes mated to a six-speed automatic.

With supercar punch comes supercar flair, or ‘flare’ maybe, considering the new Golf sits at 6.2ft wide with 295-wide rubber at the rear. They’re mounted onto custom 19in ‘Detrout’ GTI wheels, which sit just outside the full wide-body fenders all ’round.

Says Klaus Bischoff, Director of Volkswagen Design: "In the back, the show car is wider by about 3.15in on each side. The standard model already has a strong shoulder line and arched flare, but as with a sports car, we pulled the fenders more strongly outward."

He continues: "Our goal was clearly defined - despite the dramatic technical changes, the GTI W12-650 should remain clearly a classical GTI. The design of the Golf is like a fingerprint. If it smears, the character of the car is destroyed. We would not allow that to happen.
"Our largest challenge," says Klaus Bischoff, "was to supply the 6L mid-mounted engine enough air without diluting the silhouette of the GTI. Side inlets had to be used and optimised for breathing, and the aerodynamics of the car had to be reworked so that we could achieve sufficient cooling at the rear axle. We did not want to set an enormous tail wing on the car." Hmm, kind of looks like a certain six-powered Renault hatch when you think about it, doesn’t it?

In both cases, a trick helped. Bischoff continues: "The strongest Golf design elements are the C-pillars, and it was exactly there that we needed the inlets for the engine air intakes. The C-pillars were redesigned by hand in such a way that we allowed the rear windows to cant slightly inward. So, engine air is sucked in through a gap between the window glass and the C-pillar. Cooling is taken car of by an enormous radiator in front as well as by the ducts located in the flares."

Moving indoors, the Golf features newly designed leather and alacantra seats, along with very a Beyond 2000 gauge set-up and transparent flip-up switch guards for features like ESP override, ie. glammed-up missile switches. There’s also a factory-mounted fire-extinguisher and lattice instead of door panels for weight saving.

Unfortunately, this is just a concept car at the moment, but hell, it’s a wet dream on four wheels if ever we’ve seen one…