Welcome to another episode of Cars of the future past, a series here at Jalopnik in which we flip through the pages of history to explore long-forgotten concepts and how they shaped the cars we know today.
Last week’s discussion topic was a potential successor to the Acura NSX that didn’t quite make it into series production, but rather a short-lived, successful racing car. This week’s concept ran several laps around the world’s auto show track, each time appearing closer to an assembly line than the last. Though it never quite got there, it shaped a line of Volkswagen-made performance and luxury cars that survive to this day.
What is it?
Some concept cars are actually drivable, but many are not. For the Volkswagen W12 Syncro, the non-running design study route was never an option. The W12 project was commissioned by Ferdinand Piëch, then CEO of the German automaker, who envisioned a sports car as the perfect test environment for the company’s emerging technologies. This wasn’t one of those far-flung, ambitious concepts – the W12 was a technical prototype that happened to be wrapped in a beautiful case.
This bowl was the product of the Turin design house Italdesign – especially the Italdesign founder Giorgetto Giugiaro, who previously gave Volkswagen the Mk1 Golf and the Scirocco among the numerous models he wrote for other manufacturers. With its short nose, pseudo-rectangular headlights that slid into the corners, and long, sloping engine cover that ends in a flat rear, the W12 was reminiscent of a long-tail McLaren F1 that was reinvented with the help of Bauhaus .
G / O Media can receive a commission
Of course, the W12 owed its name and probably the whole reason for its existence to what was shielded under this cover. Volkswagen’s W12 engine essentially consists of two of its VR6 engines connected to a crankshaft. As with the VR design, the tight angle and staggered stacking of the cylinders within the heads made for a more compact package, and this is the car the company implemented for the first time.
The first iteration of the W12 series, the W12 Syncro, debuted at the Tokyo Motor Show in 1997. The Syncro part of the name referred to the vehicle’s all-wheel drive as Syncro preceded Volkswagen’s 4Motion branding. The 5.6 liter naturally aspirated W12 engine in this first concept produced 414 hp. That is perhaps a bit overwhelming compared to what you might expect from a modern 12-cylinder, even though Volkswagen has made up for that time deficit.
Another manufacturer – heck, even Volkswagen at another point in time – might have stopped here. But the W12 project wasn’t just a one-time affair; It was meant to be a standing statement that Volkswagen would reiterate and continually refine several times to validate its technical advancement before introducing W-configuration engines in consumer cars.
At the 1998 Geneva Motor Show, the Syncro was transformed into the W12 Roadster. Here the roadster was mechanically very similar to the earlier concept, but now obviously had no roof and put all 414 horses on the rear wheels.
Then it went quiet for a minute, though it wouldn’t stay that way for long.
The Volkswagen W12 Nardo was the highlight of the program. This screaming orange wedge premiered in the same location as Syncro – the Tokyo Motor Show – four years after the world first saw what a Volkswagen supercar might look like.
The Nardo is probably the W12 in your mind’s eye when you think of the W12. The design was evolutionary, a mid-cycle refresh, so to speak, for a car that was never honored with a production cycle from the start. The headlights were sharper and perhaps a little less friendly, the taillights sunk and the whole car a little more angular, a little slimmer. That theme carried over to the engine bay, where the old 5.6 liter unit grew to 6 liters and delivered 591 horsepower and 458 lb-ft of torque.
Volkswagen claimed that the Nardo could reach 60 mph in about 3.5 seconds – a pace right on the brink of what the world’s top sports car makers were achieving at the time, except that it sported the same badge as your Passat. It was supposed to be the last public appearance of the W12 – but from a critical point of view not the end of its story.
Why is it good
Remember, Volkswagen didn’t bring the W12 to auto shows just to glare the public eye. This series offers the most exciting and attractive way for automakers to get their radical engine designs known. And while the Volkswagen Group was toying with even more extreme W16 and W18 engines in a number of Bugatti concepts, the W12 was supposed to prove itself on the racetrack.
So Volkswagen did what nobody asked or expected of it: It drove a matt black W12 – in magnificent golden BBS wicker rims – not just once, but twice, for 24 hours, around the Italian ring Nardo. In its second run, the car covered 4,815 miles at an average speed of 200.6 mph, a 24-hour speed record that Volkswagen is claiming stands to this day. Seven drivers were involved in the effort, and the W12 set nine other FIA-approved records in its career. You can see some Recordings from one of the following campaigns.
Did it happen
The W12 concept proved itself on the racetrack and was promptly retired, although its origins from Volkswagen’s own W8 and W12-powered vehicles such as the Passat, Touareg and the Phaetonas well as top models from Audi, Bentley and of course Bugatti.
For sure, the W8 could have been a very impressive sounding, very complicated money pit, but Volkswagen’s utter reluctance at the turn of the century still has something admirable about it. Driven by more money than brains, it tried to cram its wild new engines into everything from luxury sedans to the world’s fastest production car. It is exactly the kind of hubris that, if not controlled, inevitably turns out to be in one $ 38 billion emissions scandal.
As for that Veyron, it was the only car that could have tamed the Nardo’s accomplishments. With 16 cylinders, four turbochargers and 1,184 hp at the end of its life, Bugatti’s iconic hypercar, like the newer Chiron, owes much of its legacy to the W12. And hit those numbers was definitely not easy.
Can you drive it in a video game?
Yes! In fact, of all the vehicles I’ve featured in Cars Of Future Past so far, the W12 has appeared in most of the titles. The Nardo was featured in Gran Turismo 4, 5, 6, the GT concept Series and even the PSP entry; it also made it to Project Gotham Racing 3, World Racing 2 and R: Racing Evolution, the slightly underrated semi-realistic spin-off of the Ridge Racer franchise that nobody thinks about anymore.
The W12 Syncro was included in one of Project Gotham Racing 2’s DLC packs (good luck getting your hands on that in 2021) and in Test Drive Unlimited, which is where the W12 Roadster was also available. Hell, the W12 Roadster ended up in Roadsters, a game I vaguely remember renting from Blockbuster when I was too young to make good decisions. But the W12’s best appearance in gaming may just have to be in Race Driver: Grid, which was the only title that didn’t include any of the concept versions of Volkswagen’s supercars, but rather the test car that set all these records – perfect wheels intact.
The post The Volkswagen W12 died so the Veyron and Phaeton could live first appeared on monter-une-startup.
