We’ve been following the progress of several VW drag racing teams around the world, with particular interest in the APTuning VW Corrado from the US and the AutoExtreme VW Golf from Canada.
Both cars have been chasing the front-wheel drive world record for the quarter-mile, which had been held by a Brazilian team for some time.

In fact, Joel Brown recently snatched the record in his APTuning Corrado. He ran at time of 8.98sec at 166mph at Maryland International Raceway. This meant he also became the first NHRA hotrod-class VW to run an 8sec quarter – don’t believe us? There’s video on YouTube of the run if you look for it.

However, the Brazilian team of Sergio Ganga and Joao Roberto Tasso haven’t been sitting on their hands. They went back to the drag strip and set a new world record of 8.774sec at 162mph in their 730hp four-cylinder 8v VW Sapinho running a Garrett GT4088R. Admittedly, the Brazilian car runs to slightly different rules and uses a different fuel mixture, but the battle continues.
Unfortauntely, the arrival of winter means we may not see the times tumble in North America until next spring, but rest assured but APTuning and AutoExtreme will reply!