Thursday 29th May 2014

VW GTI Roadster: official

Proper pics rather than renderings for the Worthersee concept now. Still looks mental

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With Worthersee now in full flow, VW has released further info and pictures of its GTI Vision Gran Turismo concept, now just GTI Roadster. With power and torque unchanged from the initial figures, it's the Roadster's dimensions that are most startling. The 2,494mm wheelbase is 137mm shorter than a production GTI, it's just 1,090mm tall but 4,158mm long and 1,894mm wide. Official performance stats have been released too, with a 3.6-second 0-62mph time and 190mph top speed confirmed. Should be an interesting race against the S3 Clubsport...

Of course there are no plans for production, but the GTI Roadster will be downloadable on GT6 from the middle of June.

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Original story, as reported 23/05/2014:
VW has some history with completely unhinged Golf concepts, the W12-650 of a few years ago lingering most vividly in the memory. Then last year it displayed the Golf Design VisionGTI, showing just what can happen with one too many Erdingers and some tweakery of the MQB platform. And 503hp.

The GTI cab's mad, bad brother

This year VW has gone one better and taken the roof of that GTI concept. The result is the GTI Vision Gran Turismo concept, a name that's becoming increasingly familiar across manufacturers now. Many are producing concepts that will be available in the Polyphony game (see Mercedes and BMW for example) and VW is the latest to join them.

It's mechanically similar to the Vision GTI, using the same carbon ceramic brakes, seven-speed DSG and twin-turbo V6 as that car. Power is unchanged at 503hp but torque is up to 490lb ft.

From the initial sketches at least the GTI Vision GT looks even more outlandish than the hatch, if that's what last year's car can be called. It's that low the wheels are almost as high as the rear lights and the stance makes it appear nearly as wide as it is long. The interior appears to have been designed as Batman's holiday convertible. Just as a concept should be, you might argue.

We'll update with full images and any more info as they're released.

[ArtVandelay]

Launched?

[k-ink]

I presume these sketches were produced as real VW cars look so dull in computer games?

[ftrigger]

All these flattened sketches look awful.
Is this a fashion thing ? Or would something that vaguely ressembles reality be not concept-y enough ?

[LuS1fer]

So they draw a futuristic car from the 60s with a steering wheel from an aircraft and we go "Wow". Not.

[EricE]

Does this share a platform with the Seat Ibiza Cupster? It sure looks like it...

[tram50]

Shouldn't the headline read 'VW employ new bunch of art students'

[designndrive62]

Those sketches are at such extreme perspectives that they actually hurt my eyes to try and figure out whats going on!! A little bit of exaggeration is fine but this is just too much. Poor effort too compared to the BMW and Mercedes equivalents

[mike-r]

How do they get such a specific power output figure for a drawing?

I could knock something out in Paint and say 'this has 10,000bhp' and it's just as baseless.

[SAndals]

Front of the new Scirocco?

[EricE]

mike-r said:

How do they get such a specific power output figure for a drawing?

I could knock something out in Paint and say 'this has 10,000bhp' and it's just as baseless.

I dont know where they get the exact figure from, but if they can extract 400 hp out of a production 2.0l 4-cylinder then 500 hp out of a 3.0l 6-cylinder is not unheard of.

[ally_f]

It's very similar to Citroen's GT car from a few years back...

[veevee]

"Power is unchanged..."

IT'S A DRAWING!

[SpudLink]

ally_f said:

It's very similar to Citroen's GT car from a few years back...

That was my 1st thought.

As a concept, this doesn't seem to point to anything that VW might adopt in the real world. I have to agree with the opinion that it's just en exercise in publicity, and something for the arts students to do when not putting forward new designs for air vents.

[AndyZetec1]

Now let me see how it's going to look in 'SE' trim please...

[Malachimon]

Companies need to stop making concepts like this because 80% don't get turned into real cars. Only a select few make it on the roads

[LOW4LYFE]

ftrigger said:

All these flattened sketches look awful.
Is this a fashion thing ? Or would something that vaguely ressembles reality be not concept-y enough ?

It's been around for a while, it started with people just chopping a bit off the roof and increasing the size of the wheels, but due to the roofless design and the width of this it just looks a bit daft. Certainly when I was at Uni we were encouraged to draw things that may actual resemble real life, with a little "artistic license" when in early concept stage. To be fair, it's just a pretty drawing to shove on Facebook etc to get the unwashed masses to press "Like", so it doesn't really matter whether it represents forms from the current dimension or not.

There seems to be a pattern with VAG releasing these weird "roadster" concepts lately. I actually think this little Skoda is quite cool:

[Ian974]

The platform sharing getting to the stage where they even release the same pointless concept cars sketches with both vw and seat badges on the front?

[kambites]

LOW4LYFE said:

That's great because it actually looks like a car that someone might make but is still utterly ridiculous.

[Sampaio]

Up until now only BMW had a little originality with these Vision GT concepts... this one is exactly like the overly-stretched-and-low Mercedes

[Big Fat Fatty]

It kind of reminds me of some of Peugeot's eighties concepts like the Quasar and Oxia only less interesting. However I'm sure I remember seeing a Golf that looked similar nearly 15 years ago.