VW Beetle sets speed record … for a Beetle

‘ Old’ Volkswagen Beetles aren’t strangers to motorsport. In fact, Google “Volkswagen Beetle rallying” and you’ll be introduced to a weird alternate reality of European rally action from the 1960s and 70s when they were competitive weapons.

But the New Beetle? We haven’t seen them tuned for outand- out performance that often. Until now.

A specially built — and very yellow — Beetle has smashed a speed record that has stood since 1988 at the World of Speed event at Lake Bonneville, Utah.

The Beetle LSR ( Land Speed Record) features a 2.0- litre TSI turbo which produces a colossal 410kW ( 550bhp) and features mods such as a new turbocharger, different pistons, camshafts, connecting rods and cylinder head rework.

It wears special “moon disc” style wheels wrapped in ultradurable “let’s drive very, very fast” tyres and sits closer to the ground.

A limited- slip differential is also used for improved traction.

All this running gear helped the Beetle ( or “Bug”, as they rather annoyingly refer to the model in the US) reach an impressive 326.195 km/ h over a distance of 1.6km.

The record for the world’s fastest Beetle was previously 281.6km/ h, which amazingly stood for nearly 30 years until this yellow streak turned up.

We can only imagine they removed the plastic geranium from the dash to save weight.