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Four sure!

MOTORSPORT – GOLF A59

Folklore said that only one of just three A59s had survived. Chris Eyre unearthed the first prototype, and went myth busting in Bavaria…

Photos: Chris Eyre

AS THE 2014 World Rally Championship moves in the direction of the Hannover-based Volkswagen Motorsport team once more, it’s a good time to reflect on Volkswagen’s previous stillborn journey in search of WRC glory.

In 1992, the company set out on the WRC trail, following the unsuccessful 1990 Golf Rallye campaign, by commissioning a rather extreme homologation special Mk 3 Golf, to be put into a limited production of just 2,500 cars, to make it eligible for Group A.

Revered amongst enthusiasts, it was understood that two cars and a spare bodyshell were created, and that all that survived today was the sole complete A59 that Volkswagen displays in its Wolfsburg museum. The other two had disappeared without trace – or so folklore had it.

But, when searching for any long-lost items, it pays to start from first principles. Sometimes they’re to be found where they were last seen, as is the case of the first ever Volkswagen Golf A59 prototype. Not to be confused with the A59 owned by Volkswagen; the original silver prototype, pictured with five-spoke anthracite wheels and outrageous

rear wing, has just emerged – immaculate after years out of sight…

So, in an exclusive report, we can reveal that the very first ‘lost’ car has always remained in the hands of Schmidt Motorsport, the company that created it. ‘It’s the original’ confirmed Harald Peelen, Managing Director of Schmidt Motorsport, with a sense of pride. ‘Car Zero’, as it was originally designated, by those in the development game, has been pulled out of storage at a farm to take pride of place in the Autohaus Konrad Schmidt Volkswagen dealership, for this feature.

Furthermore, the commonly accepted story that there were only three A59s was a simplification based on information given out at the time. A full investigation shows that there were certainly four, plus at least two mock-ups…

The original go-ahead for the project came in January 1992, scheduled to make a debut in Monte Carlo at the start of the 1994 season, and Volkswagen awarded the contract to turn its Golf rallying ambitions into reality to Schmidt Motorsport. Autohaus Konrad Schmidt, a Volkswagen dealer in Cadolzburg,

Bavaria, has an adjacent prototyping and motorsport business (SMS AG, now SMS Engineering GmbH). SMS had already been involved with the Audi motorsport team, having run the successful V8 DTM cars, and prototyped the road-going Audi Coupe S2.

Two separate, but connected, cars were designed: the road car and the Group A rally car, the latter clearly the real purpose of the exercise. Volkswagen had no choice but to raise the technical bar, and putting 2,500 specialist cars down a production line would clearly be a very expensive exercise. The engine, transmission, transmission tunnel, outer panels and interior bore little direct relation to an ordinary Mk 3 Golf and this, ultimately, was to be its downfall.

In 1993, as the car edged closer to production, with the second prototype completed and documents almost signed for the manufacture of the 2,500 production vehicles, the project was canned. Conceived prior to then-boss Ferdinand Piech becoming Chairman of the Volkswagen Board of Management, the ’90s recession was its death knell. With Volkswagen reportedly close to bankruptcy, the last thing the company needed was a run of potentially loss-making homologation specials being sold – or not – at a price of 80,000 DM (£33,500), at a time when a brand-new road-going Mk 3 GTI cost £13,999

So, Volkswagen collected the second fully-working ‘Car One’ A59 from SMS, complete with its unique all-aluminium engine. Now well documented, that car – with its distinctive silver wheels – was placed in the reception area of Volkswagen Motorsport in Hannover during the mid-’90s and now resides in the Wolfsburg museum.

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➔But there were three more: Car Zero, the third bodyshell and an unreported fourth.

Firstly, though, to the rediscovered Car Zero, the main focus of this feature and the first prototype built to present the concept to Volkswagen and explore the modifications required at the start of the project.

Its significantly altered styling was created by Volkswagen’s Design Studio in Dusseldorf, including preparation of a wind tunnel model. The distinctive widened wheelarch panels which define the car were then fixed to Car Zero. Giving it an aggressive stance to permit a 76 mm increase in track and wheel width, they merged with the widened bumpers, notably deeper at the front which features a unique additional air intake just below the grille. The bonnet has three big cooling apertures, while the front wings have meshed vents at the trailing edge.

The car has non-identical sides, one with side rubbing protection strips, the other having the same feature blended as a swage line into the lower door and side panel, being simply design options presented to Volkswagen. One of the A59 signature features is the tailgate without the registration plate, but with a prominent central VW roundel.

The A59’s mechanical specification was determined by Eduard Weidl, who now works at Volkswagen Motorsport. A Syncro all-wheel-drive bodyshell was used as a base – scarcely reported – to minimise any floorpan changes needed, before carrying out the structural work to turn it into an ‘A59’ chassis. Despite the Syncro boot floor already being raised for the differential, the transmission tunnel wasn’t deemed high enough for rallying, considered insufficient to tuck both propshaft and a large exhaust system up out of the way. So, Car Zero’s tunnel was cut open and a translucent composite raised structure added to demonstrate the alterations required.

The underbonnet is dominated by huge front suspension turrets sitting above the wing line, for increased wheel travel on rough gravel rallies, sufficient to require bonnet bulges. Car Zero’s engine isn’t the bespoke all-aluminium unit intended for production, instead simply a Mk 3 Golf GTI

2.0 16V unit. Notionally apeing the aluminium version, it has a mock-up of the aluminium engine’s dual-tract inlet manifold design, dummy turbo manifold and cosmetic ‘A59’ badging.

Intense debate surrounded the all-aluminium engine for the A59 production car proper. Volkswagen wanted to use twin G-Lader superchargers to demonstrate the technology, while SMS and engine designer Norbert Kreyer of MIS Motorsporttechnik (ex-Toyota and Zakspeed, then responsible for subsequent VW Motorsport engine development), wanted a single turbocharged bespoke unit to improve on the inherent valve-area constraints of the short standard Volkswagen in-line four-cylinder engine.

The engineers prevailed, with a bespoke short-stroke (86 mm x 86 mm) engine, and gas flow-optimising large valves. The first engine ran on the dynamometer in April 1993. Rated at 275 bhp and 270 lb.ft. for the road, in rally guise it would produce around 400 bhp on the FIA 38 mm turbo restrictor of the era. Reportedly, only two engines were made. One is in the road car that Volkswagen has in Wolfsburg, the other is currently unaccounted for.

The gearbox in the Car Zero prototype is a dummy five-speed Syncro unit. Designed by Karl Heinz Goldstein, the FF Developments 6-speed gearbox for the production car was intentionally heavy-duty, to resist breakage in showroom-specification ‘Group N’ rally cars. It transmitted torque to a computer-controlled Steyr Daimler Puch centre diff-erential, with hydraulic plates to vary the front-rear split between 25 and 100 per cent to the rear, using engine power signals, wheel speed and cornering force. This system was, clearly, vastly superior to the part-time on-demand viscous coupling four-wheel drive used in the Mk 2 Golf Syncro and Rallye.

The rear suspension has a clean-sheet fully independent multi-link design, using tension struts, notably casting aside the Syncro/Rallye trailing arms, while retaining the same basic attachment points, supplemented with others. Car Zero actually has no propshaft fitted, and the differential is a dummy made of plastic, though rear driveshafts are fitted.

In the boot, similar to the underbonnet, the suspension turrets are visibly raised for increased wheel travel, and to accommodate larger rear damper units. A water injection

‘ The underbonnet is dominated by huge front suspension turrets sitting above the wing line, for increased wheel travel on rough gravel rallies...’

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tank occupies the majority of the Syncro spare wheel well, on both this car and Wolfsburg’s Car One, while the remaining portion is reserved for the battery, relocated from the bonnet.

The extra front track width is achieved using one-off machined hubs, rather than parts bin components. They mimic the original design of the 5-stud Mk 3 Golf GTI and VR6 ‘Plus axle’ hub, with an extended strut and ball-joint connection. The hub is attached to original wishbones and ball-joints, which is suggestive of early stage prototyping or road car geometry compromises.

Braking-wise, the car has large cross-drilled discs all round, with Brembo 4-pot callipers at the front. For the Group A rally car, these would have been replaced by competition versions. Imposing 7.5J x 16-inch magnesium Speedline alloy wheels and 225/50 ZR-16 tyres complete the appearance. With these wheels, there’s a very purposeful look to the Zero Car, perhaps lacking in the silver-wheeled Car One.

The roof-mounted rear spoiler features two designs, one a more discreet fixed version intended for production cars, as seen on Car One, and the other a huge adjustable item fitted to Car Zero with C-pillar vent accessories, intended to be supplied in the boot, simply a homologation variation permitted at that time. Its function, as well as adding aerodynamic downforce, was to supply cooling air down to the rear brakes and differential.

Car Zero’s interior is unfinished. Only Car One has the Recaro A8 half-leather seats, Momo steering wheel and Bosch digital dashboard. Car Zero merely has a pair of standard front seats, lacks rear seats, MHW 260 kph white dash clocks, standard steering wheel, drilled pedals, A59 kick plates and, oddly, blue seatbelts.

A59 history refers to a third unassembled bodyshell. In 1996, Boulekos Dynamic, a tuning company based in Greece, bought a spare A59 bodyshell from SMS. Used as a promotional project and with all the A59 structural modifications, but without any mechanical parts, it was built up as a rolling

chassis, and painted yellow, as pictured. It remained with Boulekos for a few years until it was sold it to a customer in Greece. This car, plus Car Zero and Volkswagen’s Car One appear to account for the three cars always historically referred to.

The fourth Group A car is a curveball, never mentioned – until now. Unseen at the time, because the rally car wasn’t assembled, an A59 bodyshell was prepared at Winfried Matter GmbH, where it was seam-welded from end to end and a multipoint roll cage installed. This Group A bodyshell is the only one of its type ever created.

The A59 engine was never created in tuned rally guise. The competition gearbox with straight-cut gears and sophisticated four-wheel drive system was to be supplied by Xtrac, employing a hydraulic centre differential inspired by Toyota Motorsport, where notable rally expertise came from for the A59 project. The rest of the unseen Group A programme’s components included, amongst others, Pankl propshafts, and competition hubs derived from the legendary short-wheelbase Group B Audi Sport quattros. Suddenly, it’s clear just how serious this rally machine would have been.

Instead of Volkswagen disposing of the A59 Group A project when it all stopped, Rolf Volland of Volland Racing took it on for rallycross, along with the Xtrac Group A transmission parts, the last chance for the A59 to show its potential in motorsport. The blue car pictured here proves its existence and brings colour to the whole competition purpose.

Campaigned by Volland in the German Rallycross Championship, and on selected European Championship rounds from 1997 to 2003, he won the German Championship on five consecutive occasions from 1999 to 2003. The car was entered as a ‘VW Golf Turbo 4x4’, with no sign of the ‘A59’ tag. Using a Hohenester Sport-prepared Volkswagen diesel-block 16-valve engine in turbocharged petrol format, it produced over 500 bhp and 685 Nm of torque.

Amazingly, this proven combination was used until recently in the contemporary rallycross Polos, although new 16V head supplies are running dry. Ironically, one of the last unused 16V heads in existence will be that sitting under the bonnet of Car Zero.

The rallycross car’s story is another chapter in itself, later going to Russia before

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returning to Europe in 2008 in the hands of René Münnich and Mark Duez. It still exists, according to Rolf. It was, he said, ‘a special car to me’.

But the big question for many a Volkswagen enthusiast is ‘what happened to the wide-arch bodykits?’ The exact number made isn’t certain – less than 10, according to SMS. When Volland bought the Group A body- shell, it was complete with its own panels and bumpers but nothing else, so – before getting damaged in competition – the first job was to take moulds.

It is widely reported that a full set of original panels made its way to Momentum Motorsports in British Columbia, Canada during the Noughties. These were then fitted to a blue road-going 1997 Mk 3 GTI VR6 Driver’s Edition, a model not sold in Europe. Reported as the last of only three sets ever made for SMS, a degree of artistic licence surrounded the promotional exercise. In fact, the carbon-kevlar panels, imported via Nathan Bernard in Portland USA, originated from Volland’s rallycross moulds, not SMS as folklore has it, an identifier being the non-meshed trailing edge of the front wing. Volland confirms he still has the moulds, and – if there is sufficient demand – he can supply A59 panels. As an aside, Nathan Bernard has the ex-UK Vince Wetton/Scott Fuller Golf Rallye in the USA, which later ran an Xtrac transmission installed by John Hook. Though sketchy,

it appears that it was one of three reported A59 Xtrac units made.

In the early ’90s another Golf was also seen at Winfried Matter, with cut tubing from roll cage prototyping, making the final (known) A59 tally as four cars or chassis, one wind tunnel dummy plus the roll cage prototype. It is safe to say that both of the latter will have long since been disposed of.

But this still wasn’t quite the end of all things, A59. The aluminium engine design and drawings were sold to works engine supplier Lehmann Motorentechnik AG and used in testing, without a turbo, in South Africa on the front-wheel-drive Audi A4 Touring Cars, before being turbocharged with a 43 mm restrictor to 485 bhp for Le Mans in 2000-2003.

Fitted to a VW-France-commissioned Reynard sports prototype run by the ROC- Racing team, it won the LMP675 class for three years running from 2001 to 2003, with a Volkswagen badge on its nose and a Gemini gearbox at the back, a company famed amongst the knowing Volkswagen cognoscenti for their motorsport trans-missions. Exhibited in the reception at Volkswagen Motorsport in Hannover for a time, Lehmann is understood to have five engines still in stock, one complete. More recently, Imbach & CIE in Switzerland revealed that they still have the engine conrods tooling.

Many more finer details exist than can be crammed into this article. A59 was simply the latest in a long line of designations used by SMS for all of their developments, this one being the 59th consecutive project. The name of the Golf, had it ever been sold, would clearly have differed.

So, was A59 the missing link in the evolution of the four-wheel-drive Rallye to R brand or a second-generation Golf ‘Rallye’ perhaps? It was certainly a unique Mk 3 Golf, a Syncro on steroids that will stand as a near-mythical beacon as to what might have been. With its 0-60 mph performance anticipated to be sub-five seconds, compared with esteemed ‘homologation special’ peers from rival manufacturers of the era, and with the A59 possibly a little more advanced than them all, it would have been one very special Volkswagen collector’s car indeed. Especially if – like the current Polo WRC – it had beaten them all, in front of the World. III

My grateful thanks to Harold Peelen from Autohaus Konrad Schmidt / SMS, Rolf Volland of Volland Racing, Hugo Pauwels, Stamatis Boulekos of Boulekos Dynamic, Takis Cabilis of Cabilis Performance and Nathan Bernard for all their help in compiling this feature.

Previous articles on the A59 can be found in Volkswagen Audi Car, February 1994, and Volkswagen Driver, July 2007.

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‘The second fully-working A59,

with its unique all-aluminium engine,

was placed in the reception area of Volkswagen Motorsport in

Hannover during the mid-’90s and

now resides in the Wolfsburg museum’

Photo: Neil Birkitt