Skip to footer

560-hp Beetle to race in rally cross

VW enters a 560-hp Beetle to race in the Global RallyCross Championship later this year. Turbocharged and direct-injected four-cylinder engine will power the more than 560-hp Beetle, which will come with all-wheel drive.

|
Courtesy of Volkswagen of America
Tanner Foust, Global RallyCross champion in 2011 and 2012 and runner-up in 2013, will be one of two drivers of the 560-hp Beetle.
  • By Viknesh Vijayenthiran Guest blogger

The Global RallyCross Championship is back for another year and one of the teamsto watch in 2014 is newcomer Volkswagen, which has partnered with Andretti Autosport and will be fielding a new GRC racer based on its Beetle compact. The team has also managed to snag 2011 and 2012 GRC champion Tanner Foust as well as former Formula One man Scott Speed as drivers.

VW used today’s 2014 Chicago Auto Show to announce its entry into the sport, but the team’s Beetle GRC racer isn’t ready yet. While development is completed, the team will initially compete using modified Polo rally cars, built on the chassis that won the 2013 World Rally Championship.

VW is hoping the Beetle GRC will be ready by June. Like rival cars based on the likes of the Dodge Dart, Ford Fiesta and Hyundai Veloster, the Beetle GRC will develop upwards of 600 horsepower from a turbocharged and direct-injected four-cylinder engine. All-wheel drive will be standard, too.

GRC is one of the fastest growing motorsport categories in the U.S., and has managed to attract huge crowds at events held all over the world. For those unfamiliar with the sport of rally cross, it sees cars pitted against each other and the clock in a series of heats on a closed course that’s usually a mixture of dirt and pavement, with a 70-foot jump.

The 2014 GRC season gets underway in May, with the first leg taking place in Barbados.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 560-hp Beetle to race in rally cross
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2014/0207/560-hp-Beetle-to-race-in-rally-cross
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe