Feast your eyes on this - the Volkswagen entry for the 2015 World Rally Championship is the second-generation of Polo R WRC, revealed in Wolfsburg ahead of the curtain-raising Rally Monte Carlo on January 22.
The Polo R swept the board in 2013 and 2014, winning all the WRC titles available and Volkswagen is keen for this latest version to do the same in 2015. Reigning world champion, Frenchman Sébastien Ogier, and his co-driving compatriot Julien Ingrassia are retained for the new season, as are the Finnish and Norwegian teams of Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Anttila and Andreas Mikkelsen/Ola Fløene.
One big visual change for 2015 is the new livery. Instead of a predominantly white car, the Polo R WRC is now dark blue, seguing through sky blue to white at the rear. The mammoth spoiler on the boot is also a fresh design and of course, the Volkswagen wears all the stickers of its partners, such as Red Bull, Castrol, OMP and Michelin, among others.
Volkswagen is naturally keeping many of the technical details to itself, although it has admitted the Polo R WRC makes 318hp and has a new, hydraulically activated gearbox operated by a steering column-mounted shift paddle. In addition, 75 per cent of the components from the 2014 car have been made 'simpler, lighter and stronger'.
Anything else?
"The new Polo R WRC has undergone intense further development, both on the inside and the outside," said Dr Heinz-Jakob Neusser, Volkswagen Board Member for Technical Development.
"Not only does it look even more dynamic and sporty than it did before, but our engineers have also been working meticulously on technical innovations under the bonnet and have improved many detailed aspects of the package that has been so successful for the past two years. The focus of this further development was on efficiency, reliability and performance. We can hardly wait to see the new Polo R WRC in Monte Carlo and at the other twelve rallies on four continents."