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For a long time, enthusiasts have claimed that you need to have rear wheel drive to enjoy a car’s dynamic abilities or have a successful race car. However, while limited in their application, front-drivers have a very long and successful track record dating back to the 1960s. Let’s not forget the Mini, SAABs and even some early Audi rally efforts which used front-drive platforms and were winners. In touring cars, Audi ran Coupe GTs and front-drive 4000s in Group 5 and later Volkswagen took the idea of the performance hatchback to their Golf platform in the GTi. Wildly popular as a budget racer since new, the Golf’s basic layout and platform evolved into the Volkswagen coupes – both Scirocco and later Corrado. While the early Sciroccos also gained much success in SCCA racing in the 1970s and early 1980s, the Corrado introduced a new level of performance with the VR6 engine. While the torque-laden application would seem on the surface to be a bad match for a front driver, the Corrado when properly set up is truly an impressive car and massively quick – a great alternative to the E36 chassis, for example:
The 1990 Porsche 944S2 Firehawk series car that I wrote up back in early August is back on eBay, having failed to sell its first time around. The price has been lowered $2,000 this time, but it remains pricey by 944S2 and track car standards at $23,100. That amount does buy you a solid race car platform with an interesting history with the look of a Turbo Cup car, but I’d guess it’s still a bit too expensive for most people’s blood. If it could be had in the mid to high teens I’d think there would be more interested parties.
The below post originally appeared on our site August 4, 2014:
While BMW was a well-known name throughout Germany in the 1960s thanks to their prolific motorcycle history and pre-War exploits in the Mille Miglia and other sports car races with the 328, outside of Germany they remained fairly unknown in the 1960s. Indeed, in the late 1950s or early 1960s, if you asked someone to identify where the kidney grills belonged in Britain, they’d probably point you towards the BMW-derived Bristols of the day – straight copies of some of the first post-war BMWs, right down to the grill. So in the 1960s and 1970s, BMW went racing to try to spread the reputation of their engineering out of motorcycles or perhaps some veiled World War airplane references with their “New Class” sedans. It was independent tuners like Schnitzer and Alpina that first really started to get the small sedans noticed in Touring classes. While the large coupe based upon the New Class design wasn’t raced much in its day – efforts instead focusing on the smaller, lighter and similarly powered sedans – it’s none-the-less exciting to see a 2000CS that has been modified in the style of the period racers:
