It’s hard to believe that an event held to celebrate a car that only has two model years would actually continue to grow into its fifth year of existence. Fastivus, as it is now called, is a gathering for owners and enthusiasts of Volkswagen R32s that were sold in 2004 and 2008. The limited edition 3.2-liter V6 powered all wheel drive Golfs are the top of the VW performance food chain and have a near religious following. This year 159 cars showed up, handily beating last year’s record of 140.
The event was again organized by SocalR32 with title sponsors Volkswagen of America, HPA Motorsports out of Canada, and Southern California’s own VF-Engineering. The two day event consists of a gathering with Show & Shine judging, go-karting and vendor exhibits. The highlight of the first day is the now world famous R32 raffle which saw $33,000 worth of prizes given away to happy R32 owners.
The second day was a tire’s worst nightmare; a day of lapping the infield of California Speedway. The event is subsidized by VW so R32 owners get a track day with available instruction for only 32 bucks. 100 cars participated in the track event and were broken up into four run groups; that made for a lot of open space on the 13-turn 1.45-mile track.
HPA, VF and VW were all giving demo rides to lucky victims in some truly fast hardware. Mike Potter was also on hand giving rides in his race prepped parts4vws.com Scirocco, which despite its age and lack of displacement was still turning lap times faster than most of the R32s. There were definitely a few spins luckily nothing major. It’s always a good day when no one leaves on the hook.
The R32 is currently out of production but VW knew they couldn’t show up empty handed to the event. The fans expect them to bring something for everyone to ogle over. To give people an idea of the potential in the R32 VW brought out their turbocharged test mule. The car’s VR6 power plant is supplemented with a GT30 turbo blowing through an intercooler big enough to end global warming. They let us take the car out to check out the power delivery and see what the DSG can do with that much torque. The car pulls like a 911 twin turbo. The boost comes on smooth and controlled, shifts from DSG are so fast that you don’t loose between gears. We suspect power at the ground is nearly double that of the stock car, but it never had any problems getting power to the road. Modifications were rounded out with wheels from an Edition 30 GTI, basically BBS CHs and Recaro seats similar to those in the European Market R32. We think both of the later mods should be standard on every R car that VW sells, and we wouldn’t mind seeing a big turbo or two either. Although this car is just a design exercise, we would love to see one in production. We think if VW could have produced this car and sold them for around forty grand, they would have had a real hit. Sadly it wasn’t in the cards.
Unfortunately for its fans, it looks like the VR6 may be going away on R vehicles. The good news however is that more R vehicles are on their way. They will likely be powered by four and five cylinder turbo charged direct injection engines. While they may not have the same instantaneous snap of a naturally aspirated engine, no one can argue the performance potential and ease of tuning from forced induction.
Besides the R32, VW also brought out a few future models. First a Jetta TDI cup edition was on hand to show everyone what is coming up before the MKV goes away. The car is essentially a TDI Jetta with GLI interior, suspension and brakes with the TDI cup body kit. These will cost around 26 grand when they are released will be one of the coolest cars on the market. GLI performance with 40+mpg, does it get any better than that?
Possibly the most exciting thing and making its first West Coast debut was the MKVI Golf. VW brought out both a GTI and TDI Golf for enthusiasts to drool over. The MKVI is an evolution of the MKV, but looks far more aggressive and Germanic with its sharp creases and character lines. We had a chance to drive the new Golf a few months back in Europe and we were extremely impressed. You can read our driving impressions here.
This is truly one of the best events of the year. SocalR32 deserves a big nod for all their hard work. It isn’t often you see an event like this go off with out any problems. The participants deserve recognition as well. It is always hard to get a few hundred enthusiasts together without a couple of jackasses doing something stupid. The R32 group however seems to keep everything in line.
We look forward to next year, we are sure the event will grow again and be even better. Lets hope that VW and all the sponsors will have some surprises for everyone as well.
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