VW confirms Amarok ‘Wolf’ for Leadfoot
Hahei's annual Leadfoot Festival is perhaps best known for its eclectic mix of cars; spanning the gulf between vintage open wheelers, to rallyspec quad bikes, to drift cars, to hillclimb monsters. And the event can now boast at least one rather rapid doublecab ute.
Volkswagen has confirmed that its racemodified production Amarok V6 — known as the ‘‘Wolf’’ — will be on the grid for the event, with a Kiwi racer behind the wheel.
The Wolf's partner in crime for Leadfoot weekend is Kiwi Madeline Stewart. The 19yearold is a former round winner in Australian Rotax Pro Tour karting, and is these days best known for driving a Brad Jones Racing Holden Commodore in the V8 Touring Cars (formerly known as Super3).
‘‘We felt Madeline was the best fit for the job, not only because of her stellar track record but also because of her upcoming involvement with the V8 Touring Cars and the Porsche GT3 Cup in Asia. We know she will go far, and we hope this experience will help her on her journey,’’ Volkswagen New Zealand Commercial Vehicles general manager Kevin Richards said.
The blackonblueonblack Amarok sports a spartan cabin stripped of most creature comforts in order to save weight, plus a set of lowprofile Michelins, an upgraded brake package, Sabelt race seats, and more.
The ute will be competing on the twoyear anniversary of its last big public performance. As part of the 2018 LiquiMoly Bathurst 12 Hour weekend, it set a flying lap of Mt Panorama with GT pilot Renato Loberto at the helm.
Hitting over 200kmh on Conrod Straight, it set a laptime of 2min 57.24sec — roughly 15 seconds slower than a Superute. Impressive, given that it's relatively stock underneath its colourful bodywork, and given that it was quicker than a Volkswagen Golf GTI that also paced the iconic circuit.
Since setting that time, it’s been given the same tuning upgrade as a standard Amarok V6, which boosts torque figures from 550Nm to a segmentbest 580Nm.