Cool,
A quick search and I found this article about those Bilstein Races: http://www.hemmings.com/hsx/stories/2008/11/01/hmn_feature15.html "In the United States, Volkswagen supported the Rabbit Bilstein Cup from around 1978 through 1982, and this shot of a Rabbit Bilstein Cup race at Phoenix International Raceway, on the one-mile oval, dates from either 1979 or 1980. By this time, Volkswagen had opened its U.S. assembly plant in New Stanton, Pennsylvania, a factory that had previously been used by Chrysler. I drove the very first Rabbit to the West Coast that had been produced there when I was working as technical editor of Hot VWs. The majority of cars in this race, bunched tightly together as they usually were on the ovals, would thus be Pennsylvania-built Rabbits. Generally speaking, the Rabbit races were sort of third-tier events along with the Super Vee and Trans-Am series, on the card as support events at Can-Am or Indy car races. They were wild races, held on ovals and road courses." As for the 16v & BMW relationship, I personally see a lot of similarity between the german cars of the late 80s, maybe they were all influenced by the same races or the same car designers. UrQuattro, E30 M3 and MK2 GTIs all have flared fenders and lots of angels. I wonder what the origins of this design is from. Maybe this is before wind tunnel designing which smoothed everything out.. Also, the 16V was an expensive car when new - so it is possible that people who bought them could also afford to go to BMW cars once BMWs started winning races. I wonder if that path always leads to Porsche when the budget allows. Intersting stuff about this VW racing history, thanks for sharing Matthew, Larry 91 GTI 16V -----Original Message----- From: a2-16v-list [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Matthew Yip Sent: Monday, August 25, 2014 3:18 PM To: Volkswagen a2 16v discussion list Subject: Re: [a2-16v-list] MK2 16V in Racing? VW supported the Bilstein Cup, first with the Rabbit and later with the 8v Gti but not with the 16v. I don't recall the 16v being involved in any factory-backed race series. By the time the 16v was introduced, VW was in an unfortunate decline as their cars were no longer the small, cute econoboxes that buyers gravitated towards as a Beetle replacement. Speaking of the 16v - I found a surprising number of BMW ///M owners who had owned a 16v VW product immediately prior to their BMW ownership. This seems to have only pertained to the early ///M cars that were truly unique and special (read: E30 M3, E24 M6 and E28 M5) - the current ///M cars are still about "go" but with a significantly greater emphasis on "show" as well :( On Monday, August 25, 2014 2:54 PM, Larry Velez <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hey 16vers, Last night I got around to seeing Vodafone Rally de Portugal which I had DVRed when it re-aired recently. VW Motorsports won it with a Polo R. Recently I also watched the documentary on Senna and in one scene he is driven away from the track in an MK2, was pretty cool to see it in the film. Couldn't tell if it was a GTI or not. Got me thinking, was the MK2 ever raced by VW and if so, did they use the 16v engine in any of those races? Just curious, Larry 91 GTI 16V _______________________________________________ a2-16v-list mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://mail.a2-16v.com/mailman/listinfo/a2-16v-list For list archives, see listinfo link above. _______________________________________________ a2-16v-list mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://mail.a2-16v.com/mailman/listinfo/a2-16v-list For list archives, see listinfo link above. _______________________________________________ a2-16v-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.a2-16v.com/mailman/listinfo/a2-16v-list For list archives, see listinfo link above.
