What's the news?
Having just set the record for the fearsome Pikes Peak hillclimb (with the I.D R Pikes Peak electric race car) Volkswagen is on the hunt for yet more records, and is planning to head to the famed Bonneville salt flats in Utah to set a land speed record... with a Jetta.
Yup, you read that right - everybody's favourite family four-door, the Golf with the boot, is going to be souped-up and sent to the salt, with Volkswagen optimistic that it can tweak its new Jetta to hit 335km/h.
Hinrich J. Woebcken, President and CEO of Volkswagen of America, said: "With this attempt at the record we want to underline the sporting potential of the new Jetta and inspire our customers with the more powerful Jetta GLI."
The standard Jetta saloon, which is not (rather sadly) coming to Europe, is powered by a Volkswagen's venerable EA888 1.4-litre turbo four-cylinder petrol engine, which normally pumps out a thoroughly respectable 140hp. For this Bonneville event, though, Volkswagen's engineers are planning to use the 2.0-litre version of the same engine (usually found in the Golf GTI and R models) and tweak it to more than 500hp. To snatch the record for the production-based BGC/G class on the salt flats, the Jetta will have to run faster than the top speed of an LMP1 prototype racer at Le Mans.
To make it salt-ready, Volkswagen has stripped-out the Jetta's interior, leaving just a driver's seat, and the most basic controls and instruments needed. Needless to say, there's a full racing bucket seat with six-point safety harness, and a roll-cage. Outside, the body has been given a high-speed, low-drag bodykit that lowers the coefficient of drag to a very impressive 02.7Cd. The aero package also creates significant downforce, to try and keep the Jetta pinned to the salt at very high speeds.
THR Manufacturing, a Bonneville Speed Week specialist, has collaborated with Volkswagen on the project, and aside from special wheels and tyres (the salt surface requires some seriously specialised rubber) there's also a limited slip differential to help the Jetta put its considerable power down evenly, and (the best bit) twin braking parachutes at the back.
Volkswagen's California-based design studio has also gotten in on the game, creating a distinctive blue-and-while colour scheme for the Jetta. "We wanted to emphasise the technical charisma of the Jetta and give the car designer graphics that set it apart from the extraterrestrial-looking environment of the Bonneville Salt Flats," says Reto Brun, Director of the Design Centre.
Assuming that the Jetta succeeds, it will become the fastest production(ish) Volkswagen of all, eclipsing the record of 330km/h set by a highly modified 543hp Beetle.