The 39th Wörthersee GTI meeting was
supposed to take place in May 2020, but the coronavirus pandemic led to its
cancellation. Obviously, Volkswagen had several custom projects in store for
the event and today we get to see one of them. It’s called the Golf GTE HyRacer
and it has just made a delayed debut at the Autostadt in Wolfsburg.
Based on the Golf GTE plug-in hybrid, the
HyRACER show car was built by trainees from Volkswagen Group Retail Germany
over several months in five conversion phases. If if wasn’t very clear already,
the “Hy” stands for hybrid while “Racer” is a reference to the sporty genes of
the show car. The custom Golf GTE project is a premiere for Volkswagen Group
Retail Germany, as the 13 trainees were selected from different car dealerships
across Germany. They were only able to work together on the car for a limited
period of time, which made the project even more challenging.
For starters, they fitted an individual body kit consisting of a
deeper front apron, front splitter, fender add-ons that add 80 mm (3.15 in) to
the car’s width, a rear apron with diffuser, roof spoiler with integrated brake
light from the Arteon, and a central double tailpipe. The car was also equipped
with an adjustable sports suspension that lowers the Golf GTE by 40 mm (1.57
in). The black powder-coated 19-inch alloys were specially designed by the
trainees and shod with 265-mm (10.4-in) wide tires and 380-mm (14.9-in) brake
discs at the front.
Inside, the trainees added Alcantara on
the dashboard, door panels, steering wheel with blue 12 o’clock marking and
center console. The sports seats with integrated headrests feature embossed
‘GTE HyRACER’ lettering in blue which matches the blue decorative stitching
found elsewhere. The cabin also comes with a trainee logo designed specifically
for this project by the trainees. And, given that young people designed and
built the Golf GTE HyRACER, you won’t be surprised to learn the trunk houses
two electric scooters that can be charged there.
As for the powertrain, the Golf GTE
HyRACER was slightly dialed up to deliver 250 PS, up from the
stock car’s 204 PS. A metal plate placed under the bonnet
features the names of all 13 trainees that worked on the project.
