Volkswagen may have pulled out of the World Rally
Championship, but it’s back on the scene with the new Polo GTI R5. Derived from
the car with which it won four consecutive world championships, the new R5 is
built as a customer rally car. It packs a 1.6-liter turbo four, sending 270
horsepower to all four wheels through a five-speed sequential gearbox. 0-62 is
quoted at 4.1 seconds.
The automaker first announced plans for the Polo GTI
R5 this past November, and revealed it in December. Now it’s already gearing up
to start delivering the 15 of the new rally machines to eagerly awaiting
customer teams.
Volkswagen Motorsport will deliver most of them to
teams in Europe. Three will go to Baumschlager Rallye & Racing GmbH in
Austria, and three to teams in Belgium (BMA and THX Racing). Two apiece will go
to the Printsport Oy team in Finland, to HK Racing in Italy. An unidentified
team in Portugal and Sweden’s Kristoffersson
Motorsport will each get one. And three will go all the way to the VW importer
in Paraguay.
Since the FIA initiated the new R5 regulations in
2012, five manufacturers have supplied more than 400 cars to teams around the
world. Volkswagen’s motorsport division will take the steel chassis off the
production line in Spain, and finish each one by hand at its dedicated facility
in Hannover, Germany. Once homologation is complete in the summer, these
initial deliveries are set to commence in the second half of this year.
