The First-Ever Golf 8 GTI Launched In South Africa. Why? Because, Racecar

Volkswagen’s new Global Touring Cars (GTC) racing car

Volkswagen Motorsport in South Africa unveiled its new Global Touring Cars (GTC) racing car through a virtual event which was streamed live on social media. This is the first time we get to see the new Golf 8 in GTI form, but in full blown race mode.

Volkswagen Motorsport’s new GTC racing car is built using the Golf 8 GTI body. For the past four years, VW SA we have been racing with the Jetta. Since the Jetta is no longer offered in right-hand drive markets, they had to find an appropriate successor and naturally, the Golf 8 GTI was the perfect match. Even though the Golf 8 GTI will only be officially launched and available from South African dealers in 2021, VW SA wanted to use this opportunity to showcase the Golf 8 GTI’s performance attributes ahead of the local market introduction.

Global Touring Cars (GTC), which launched in South Africa in 2016, is the premier motorsport championship in South Africa and includes the main GTC Championship (GTC1) as well as the second-tier class, GTC2.

The new car is an exciting addition to South African motorsport and produces over 200kW coupled to a locally developed 6-speed M-Trac Sequential Gearbox.

In the GTC series all vehicles have to adhere to strict control measures which feature a common chassis, running gear, a single ECU to control performance, tyres, suspension and other components.

New features in the Golf 8 GTI racing car include an all-new chrome moly tubular chassis which is much stiffer and lighter than the previous generation GTC car.

While this is not near what the production car will look like, it does give us some tasty clues as to what the road going car will look like. We like, A LOT! And if you are wondering...the wing will unfortunatley not come as an otional extra at the delaership. Boo!

What do you think of the new Golf 8 GTI in Wolf's clothing?

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Comments (2)

  • Stunning.. absolutely brilliant

      1 year ago
  • That’s wonderful looking.

      1 year ago
2