RE: VW Golf A59: The stillborn European Evo
Discussion
anything fast said:
has no one heard of the VR6 then? also the 16v GTI was nippy if not rapid. The standard basic 8v was slow and dreary but the more potent ones were not bad and a lot more grown up than the poorly made garish rivals from other makes.
There must be some super-ace driving gods and Formula 1 drivers on this forum. It's the only conclusion I can reach after 3 years of thrashing an 8v Mk 3 Golf GTI about and never having any issues with it's speed or handling. Sure it wasn't that fast nor the sharpest tool in the handling box but it was fast enough and you could chuck it through lanes as fast as any other car given progress in such circumstances is invariably limited by the distance you can see.I accept of course that maybe I am the driving god and all those dipsticks in their fancy BMWs who couldn't put any distance on it may just have been the problem and maybe not attended the Ken Block School of Driving.
I saw the A59 under construction when on a visit to SMS and had a good poke around it in their workshop I wish still had the photos I took of the underside, engine bay and so on. Like all SMS developed cars, it was very well engineered. At the time it was an awesome beast and still looks it today. Pity it was stillborn 
It's red, not pink! Definitely red...SirSamuelBuca said:
a non boring golf? hmm
My sarcasm detector is twitching!The A59 clearly shows what VW are capable of but sadly the rally rules of the time were changed just after the car was developed rendering it somewhat useless, the same as the golf Rallye that proceeded it.
That said in 1992 when VW chucked a 2.8 6 cylinder engine into the mk3 that was considered exciting, yet around PH even that is shot down and ridiculed purely for being a golf.
ker but I love it.Shows just how interesting the WRC cars were back then compared with modern rally cars. Together with today's short sissy event format, it's evidence enough as to why it's proving hard to get fans interested today.
As for this car, fascinating though it is, it would never have had the sheer brio of an EVO - and I mean a Mitsubishi or an Integrale.
I was fortunate enough to own a yellow Integrale EVO2 which was simply fantastic in every way.
A truly legendary car. I do miss it dearly, but there was never a time when everything worked !
All part of the charm, I suppose. But charm can come expensive !
Good try, VW, but even if it had been bulletproof, the Golf would never have won me over.
As for this car, fascinating though it is, it would never have had the sheer brio of an EVO - and I mean a Mitsubishi or an Integrale.
I was fortunate enough to own a yellow Integrale EVO2 which was simply fantastic in every way.
A truly legendary car. I do miss it dearly, but there was never a time when everything worked !
All part of the charm, I suppose. But charm can come expensive !
Good try, VW, but even if it had been bulletproof, the Golf would never have won me over.
aka_kerrly said:
The A59 clearly shows what VW are capable of but sadly the rally rules of the time were changed just after the car was developed rendering it somewhat useless, the same as the golf Rallye that proceeded it.
The Golf Rallye saw rule changes which rendered its supercharged induction seriously uncompetitive. This car mainly ran in 1990-91, and was canned.As far as I know the rules when the A59 was built weren't changing at all. Minor tweaks to tyre widths, but the A59 was the same as everyone else: 4WD, 2 litre and a turbo. So with the A59, there was everything to play for, in theory.
But the word on the A59 demise, with the mechanically-proven Escort Cosworth imminent, the might of TTE with the Celica, and the '90s recession (as mentioned in the article), was VW top brass were getting very cold feet looking at the R&D expense mountain they'd have to bankroll to SMS to see any chance of success. Cue the dust sheets!
Ali_T said:
Why can't the Golf R have that level of attitude? I also remember, years ago, reading of a project by Honda, based on the then-new Integra which was 4wd and a supercharged B18 of around 240bhp, back in 91/92. Car drove it, I believe, but it never made production, nor was it used for rallying. The DC2 came about instead.
Here's the article for those interested:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y113/jkeirnan/unt...
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y113/jkeirnan/unt...
I remember this Integra from a feature in Top Gear magazine sometime in the 90s.Here's the article for those interested:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y113/jkeirnan/unt...
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y113/jkeirnan/unt...
jbforce10 said:
Those performance figures are respectable for a *production* homologation vehicle of the early 1990's but if that was how their actual competition car performed then it's no wonder they canned the project.
It was a ground-up all-square, 86x86mm, all aluminium racing engine, code name HPT16 (see Google). The engine produced 485bhp on a 43mm restrictor in Le Mans guise, and was run in n/a guise in late-spec Audi A4 Touring Cars in South Africa.In Golf A59 competition guise, it'll all have come down to that T3 turbo, and the rallying restrictors. What they needed was 2,500 laggy production cars for homologation - see Escort Cosworth.
SMS knew what they were doing, and they'll have seen to the turbo being big enough. When they R&D'd the Audi S2 Coupe production car for Audi, they were trying their hardest to get a big turbo on it at production, because they would then be on pole to sell and prepare Audi S2 rally cars, and create an income stream with a winning formula. Ingolstadt stuck the kybosh on it, out it went to the masses with a small minimal-lag turbo, hence it couldn't hold a candle to the GpN Escort Cosworth. End of idea, after all, it was just a sporting Audi, but it proved they'd have done it with the 'homologation special' Golf A59.
Ali_T said:
I've been trying to find that Car mag article for years. This reminded me of it so went a hunting on Google! It was around the time when Honda also made a Prelude SiR with a completely sealed, maintenance free engine.
I recognise that old scan 
By the way, you won't find it in Car mag, it's from Autocar
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff