Turning the virtual world into reality, Volkswagen presents the GTI Roadster Concept at Woerthersee GTI meeting in Austria
Originally created as a purely electronic car to feature in the Sony PlayStation 3 classic Gran Turismo 3, the GTI Roadster Concept is the brainchild of three young VW designers. The GTI Roadster Concept became part of the game after designers Malte Hammerbeck, Domen Rucigaj and Guillermo Mignot took top honours in an in-house competition to design a vehicle to celebrate 15th anniversary of the Gran Turismo game. The design was selected by Klaus Bischoff, Head of Design for the Volkswagen Brand, and Kazunori Yamauchi of Sony Computer Entertainment, the creator of the Gran Turismo series.
The virtual car was unveiled on May 26, and just a few days after, Volkswagen presented it made real at the annual gathering of GTI fans on the shores of Woerthersee, which runs from 18-31 May. The VW GTI has drawn on last year’s Woerthersee car, the Design Vision GTI, but with an even more extreme design language. At 2,494mm the GTI Roadster Concept’s wheel base is 137mm shorter than the production Golf GTI. In fact it is also shorter than the Design Vision GTI’s wheelbase. A lot of the stunning looks of the GTI Concept can be attributed to the short minimal 1090mm height, the extreme 1,894mm width and the 4,158mm length.
Powering the two-seater GTI Concept is a 3.0-litre V6 biturbo TSI engine that produces 50PS, and maximum torque of 560Nm between 4,000 and 6,000rpm. Power is delivered to the tarmac via a 7-speed DSG gearbox and 4MOTION four-wheel drive system that helps the car to touch the 100kmph marker from standstill in just 3.6 seconds and can record a top speed of 306kmph.
On the outside the car is painted in Gran Turismo Red while on the inside it sports black- and anthracite-coloured sections, contrasted by classic GTI red stitching including a five-point safety harness. As of now, Volkswagen hasn’t got any plans of bringing this concept to production but for players of the GT6 the car will be made available for download from mid-June.