A new Souped-up Volkswagen Beetle

The battle for the fastest-accelerating car is ferocious. Bugatti is currently in the lead with its Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse with a 0-100 km/h time of 2.4 seconds, followed closely by Porsche with the 918 Spyder (2.5 sec), McLaren with the P1 (2.7 sec), Koenigsegg with its Agera R (2.7 sec) and Nissan’s GT-R (2.7 sec).

If we were to line up all these supercars on a drag strip for a 0-100 run, they would lose to Volkswagen’s latest creation, the Beetle GRC!

Granted, the world’s fastest VW is not road-legal, but this is still an impressive achievement. Built from the ground up to race in the Global Rallycross Championship and replace the Polos currently driven by Tanner Foust and Scott Speed, the Beetle GRC is powered by a 1.6 liter turbocharged engine delivering an astonishing 544 HP. A six-speed sequential gearbox with short gears sends this power to limited slip fixed ratio front and rear differentials. With a weight under 1210 kg, the car goes from 0 to 100 in 2.1 seconds! To make sure it can withstand the jumps at the track, the suspension has 23 centimeters of travel.

This new Beetle will be unveiled during this weekend’s GRC race, before being driven by Foust and Speed in the coming events of the 2014 season.

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