VW unveils 560hp rallycross Beetle

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ever is being unveiled at the Chicago Auto Show. The GRC Beetle is an all-wheel-drive competition car that will compete in the Global Rallycross Championship (GRC) later this year, and will make its debut at the Summer X Games extreme sports event in Austin, Texas, in June.

Volkswagen hasn’t revealed full technical details of the GRC Beetle, but announced that the car will produce more than 560hp with the help of a turbocharged and direct-injection TSI engine.

Until now the most powerful roadgoing variant was the Beetle GSRVolkswagen Beetle GSRGermany, 2014 > present, which uses the technical set-up of the Volkswagen Golf GTI and produces 207hp.

The new Beetle may draw some technical inspiration from the Volkswagen Polo R rallycross car built for Carlos Sainz for last year's Barcelona X-Games competition, an event that was eventually cancelled.That car produced about 550hp, hitting 60mph from a standstill in about two seconds.

The rallycross Beetle program will be backed up by Andretti Autosport, former F1 and IndyCar racer Michael Andretti. The team will field two GRC Beetles, driven by Tanner Foust and Scott Speed.

The team will initially compete this season with modified Volkswagen Polo rally cars, derived from the machines that dominated last year’s World Rally Championship, before switching to the Beetle in the middle of the year.