VW Motorsport Corrado history

[Philstrm250 10]

Hi all,

 

I was wondering if anyone has any info. (keeping it on topic!) regarding the history and origins of the VW Motorsport Corrado programme, if such a thing existed?

 

Having recently seen a pic. of a rare VWM VSR / ABT tuned Corrado that was purchased in Japan, plus the VWM OEM+ options of a VSR manifold and BBS RS301 alloys, which are some of the most desirable upgrades for a lot of owners, I'm interested to learn more about the Corrado Motorsport related history of it all.

 

For instance, did VW have a Motorsport programme for the Corrado, ie. a one make, track race series?

 

Was the VSR manifold and BBS RS301's designed originally for a VW factory Motorsport team, and other Corrado Motorsport applications?

 

I don't know much at all about the Motorsport related background on the Corrado and I'm sure alot of forum members would also find it interesting if anyone know's more about this subject and maybe could post up some pics. or share some stories from back in the day, if this programme and the cars existed or still do exist?

 

Cheers,

 

Phil

Edited June 22, 2013 by Philstrm250

[Harrier 1]

Don't think Vw ever did anything with the Corrado motorsport related, in that era ,early 90's i remember the Golf rallye & not much else.

[Philstrm250 10]

It's interesting to find out why and how the VSR and RS301's were apparently developed for Corrado Motorsport applications, whether that was for a VW factory team or privateers. Did anyone use to enter official Motorsport events in a Corrado back in the 90's or attend any as a spectator?

 

Yep I remember the Golf Rallye has a Motorsport connection, maybe there's a Corrado link in there!

[Philstrm250 10]

Found some pics. and info. on Ken Lark's VW Cup / VAG Trophy racing Corrado VR6, looks pretty mean!:

 

http://www.ianhardy.net/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=19538

 

 

It's a Grant Motorsport prepared car with a VSR manifold, but not sure of the other mods. at the moment. Nice!

 

Found an old thread with a couple of Corrado VR6 VW Cup racer interior cabin shots:

 

http://the-corrado.net/showthread.php?t=6076

 

 

Some great shots from a VW cup series race at Oulton Park in May 2002, a Corrado leading the pack!:

 

 

It's good to know that the Corrado does have a little bit of Motorsport heritage.

 

Massive rims! any idea what alloys they are?

Edited June 23, 2013 by Philstrm250

[Philstrm250 10]

Over 200 views of this thread so far and only 1 response! :bonk:

 

It would be great if some of you guys and girls could share some info. on any Corrado Motorsport programmes that used to run?.

Does anyone know the spec. of Ken Lark's VAG Trophy VR6?, or the VW Cup cars from circa. 2002? Where are they now?

 

Have you seen the interior shots of the VW Cup car in that old thread?, 125K to build that car apparently, that's mental !

 

Anyway I think it's an interesting part of Corrado history, come on spill the beans guys! :thumbleft:

[vw rule 19]

I think the MK2 Golf Rallye G60 was never entered in to a rally by VW them selves,

because the car never passed the racing regulations.

VW just max produced it and sold it as a high performance car for 12 to 18 months just before the G60 Corrado came out.

 

I know there was I think a G60 track race cup series years and years ago ? but can't find anything on it.

 

From what I can see VW did some development to the Golf Rallye very late in it's life just before they ended production,

they fitted it with a 16v cylinder head, so from 158 BHP 8V to 207BHP 16v

That must of been some kind of rocket 207 BHP and a top speed of 153 MPH = that's faster then the superb VR6

 

Here's the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G60

 

 

Plus I've found this on the VW Vortex Forum they've done a similar thread a few years ago http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?5019539-Track-shots-Autocross-shots-and-Unique-Rolling-shots!-Let-s-see-them!/page2

 

 

Right I've found this from 2012 http://www.vagtrophyracing.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73&Itemid=114

 

 

 

Plus here I think is the 2013 Championship Table http://www.vagtrophyracing.co.uk/docs/V%20A%20G%20_Trophy_CHAMPIONSHIP%20STANDINGS%202013_Cadwell.pdf

 

 

U-tube video link at Oulton Park from 2012

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

Si :thumb right:

 

---------- Post added at 2:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 1:44 PM ----------

 

Also just found this it's the Superpro V.A.G FaceBook, which gets updated all the time by the looks of it https://www.facebook.com/SuperProVagTrophy

 

 

Si

[Portent 0]

http://www.clubgti.com/showthread.php?214640-Slick-50-Golfs

 

The only motorsport that I seem to recall with a large vw membership was the Slick 50 series. But that was Golfs.

[Philstrm250 10]

Thanks guys, that's great.

 

That VW Vortex thread link is really good, some amazing and crazy Corrado road and track pics. in there from europe and North America!

 

Yes Corrado racing in the UK seems to have faded into a bit of a distant memory, but it's good to find out more about it.

[Philstrm250 10]

A few more VW Cup Motorsport pics. of Ken Lark driving his VR in anger at Thruxton in Aug 2004:

 

 

 

He got second place in this one.

Does anyone know what the spec. was for these racing Corrados? I don't think G60's were allowed in this series, not sure why.

 

---------- Post added at 11:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:20 PM ----------

 

Check out these rare Grant Motorsport VR6 Intake Trumpets, pure awesomeness!

http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?5408972-Rare-VR6-Grant-motorsport-ITB-s-All-Motor

 

Bet they make a lovely VR roar, highly addictive!

So, you can kiss goodbye to your mpg and fuel consumption then, but who cares!

[lesarcsneil 0]

I used to go to watch the VW cup quite a lot 'back in the day' as there are 4 of the circuits within an hours drive.

 

There are 4 corrados that I can remember entered in the series:

 

Ken Larks VR6 run by Grant Motorsport

The sister VR6 of Ken Larks, destroyed in an accident by Lee Wharton (?)

Another VR6 run by Dan Thackeray who was 16(?) in 2005, he was mighty quick but the car rarely made it to the end of a race due to mechanical problems

A corrado with a 2.0 16v was run by Alex Dziurzynski in 2006, and a couple of years after that. It was red/white and his brother ran a Golf at the time

 

At the time the regulations were that everyone ran the same power/weight ratio so there was an interesting mix of cars. Lighter mk1's were quicker around the twisty circuits e.g. Brands Indy whereas Ken Lark really favoured the old Snetterton circuit with the long straights where the aerodynamics were a big advantage. He was running somewhere around 220 bhp from a blueprinted VR6 that revved to 8500. The car had a Gemini sequential gearbox and 18's to fit over the massive brakes.

 

None of the cars were run by VW motorsport at the time, they were run by independent teams.

 

You had to see how much speed the Ken Lark car could carry through the old Coram at Snetterton, he was visibly quicker than anyone else at the time. A grid of VR6's taking off at the start of a race was also pretty spectacular.

 

VW's influence on the series was obvious. One year Rob Carvell turned up in a Jabbasport prepared Scirocco which was superbly prepared and very quick. VW didn't seem to like the older cars beating the newer ones so he kept losing points on technicalities and didn't win the series that year in what was clearly the fastest car.

 

All IMO, I'll take off my rose tinted spectacles now.

 

Neil

[CazzaVR 0]

There was definitely a Corrado (G60?) running in the VW cup this year. Caught it on TV (Channel 4) a few weeks ago. The Rado did OK against all the modern stuff 8)

Edited June 29, 2013 by CazzaVR

[Swompy 0]

There is a page on fb I'm following that races a corrado. Can't for the life of me remember what they are called but they are German (I think) the corrado is red and black. As soon as I find it will post a link

[zeb911 10]

I can only remember the Dzinskyz (sp?) brothers corrado a few years back but nothing else. A mate told me he'd seen some continental rallying from belgium that raced one in tarmac events but I cant find anything and he's got a memory like a ruddy seive...

 

I'll keep looking....:scratch:

[Swompy 0]

As promised here is the link to a fb page that races the Corrado. Based in hamburger.

 

https://m.facebook.com/fast.racing.7

[beastie4126 0]

So who's up for a Corrado race meet at Brands Hatch on the 11 & 12th August?

 

The Corrado listed is shown as a 2.0 Gti ?? http://vw-cup.co.uk/drivers013.htm

 

52 Alex DZIURZYNSKI West End Precision Corrado GTI 2.0

[corozin 0]

It's interesting to find out why and how the VSR and RS301's were apparently developed for Corrado Motorsport applications, whether that was for a VW factory team or privateers. Did anyone use to enter official Motorsport events in a Corrado back in the 90's or attend any as a spectator?

 

Yep I remember the Golf Rallye has a Motorsport connection, maybe there's a Corrado link in there!

 

As far as I know there was no official VW Motorsport programme for the Corrado. The thing that possibly confuses the subject is the VW Motorsport branding that was on the Pierburg VSR inlets that were originally designed for the VR6 but were then pulled from the production cars. That protoype run of inlets is why there are 500 VSR's floating around in the world now - I used to have one.

 

The subject of Ken Lark's VW Cup car I can talk to, as I got to know Ken at the time the car was built and campaigned back then. The car was originally built ground up by an ex Brabham engineer named Gerry Bergstrom, who also built up the initial batch of blueprinted race engines by matching bits from a batch of around 6 road engines. The car interestingly also had a crash-box which made it pretty unique in the VW Cup in the early days.

 

The car was always quick and particularly so on the power circuits like Snetterton and Thruxton, but it's achilles heel seemed to be it's race starts where the long first gear frequently bogged it down and saw it swamped by competitors even though Ken was a frequent front row qualifier. A bunch of us were at Brands Hatch in 2000 when Ken & Gerry won thier first trophies and Ken was kind enough to bring the race car up to Donington in 2001 to the Corrado Club National Day and put in on display.

 

In 2003 a few of us went up to Snetterton for a charity day where rides were available and I was lucky enough to get a passenger ride in the car. With the engine power limited to around 240bhp under VW Cup regs it was sort-of fast in a straight line but under braking and around the bends it was a bloody monster. The thing had 380mm AP racing brakes and 10" wide tyres on it and even in the rain it shoved you hard into the belts under braking. There was a point were (through the spray) we came up behind a Ferrari 360 which was having the wheels driven off it and yet we were past it (on the outside as he drifted it) within just three bends.

 

Ken was a CCGB member throughout his campaign with the car and I believe his daughter is still batting around in a R32 engined Corrado. After Ken & Gerry parted company the car was maintained by a guy called Ian Fowler who still had (and may still have) a VW garage business somewhere around Welwyn Garden City. I believe Grant Motorsport started to prepare the engines in the later years which is where the livery comes into it.

 

After a number of fairly successful years with odd wins here & there the Corrado was eventually surpassed by newer cars, and in particular the R32 Golf derivatives. Interestingly a Corrado still competes in the VW Cup, in a series now almost completely comprised of new Sciroccos and Mk6 Golfs. VW has ensured that the older cars aren't particularly competitive anymore, which has slightly killed my interest in the series TBH. It used to be the mad diversity of models that contributed to the fun, although they still have a Caddy TDi racing in it.

 

Hope this is of interest. Ken is a terrific bloke and I think he was racing his old Vento VR6 in pre-90 saloons the last time I saw him

 

John

[g0ldf1ng3r 15]

Thanks for the detailed post John! Very interesting & a good read :)

[zeb911 10]

What he said ^

 

thanks john

[corozin 0]

I know I have some photos lurking around back from those days. If anyone is interested enough I will look for some and post them up?

[zeb911 10]

yes please!

[g0ldf1ng3r 15]

you know we all love to see pics corozin!!! ;)

[Philstrm250 10]

Hi all, it's great to see the interest in Corrado racing history and the posts on here so far, in particular many thanks to Neil and John for sharing your first hand experiences of Corrados racing in the UK from back in the day!

Definately a very interesting read John and it would be great to see some pics. please.

 

Cheers,

Phil

Edited August 2, 2013 by Philstrm250