The VW Golf GTE HyRACER Concept Is The Worthesee Secret Ruined By COVID-19

The annual Worthesee meet is like a pilgrimage for VW fans. It takes over an Austrian town, and the VW mothership itself tends to bring a couple of concepts along for fans to gawp at. This year, Worthesee was cancelled - you probably know why - after 38 years of cars and general peoples car mayhem.

This is the car VW was planning to show off to its army of fans. Called the Golf GTE HyRACER concept, it’s a powerful plug-in hybrid with a fantastically over-the-top bodykit. Just in case you weren’t sure, the ‘Hy’ bit stands for ‘hybrid’, and the ‘RACER’ bit in all caps shows how sporty it is.

It was created by 13 trainees from VW’s German dealerships, who took a few months and five different conversion phases to create what could be the first Max Power hybrid.

The GTE HyRACER gets a more aggressive bumper and splitter combo, and has phat wheel arches that extend the car’s width by 80mm. It sits 40mm lower, and around the back there’s a new diffuser, central exhaust pipes and a spoiler nicked from the swoopy Arteon.

Inside, you might think you’re in a Golf R, given all the Alcantara around you and the blue 12 o’clock marker on the steering wheel. There’s also blue stitching and embossed GTE HyRACER lettering in the same colour.

Open the boot and you’ll find two e-scooters and charging docks, which gives an idea of the age of some of the trainees. It’s the new equivalent of filling the boot with a massive subwoofer.

The powertrain’s the same, but power is up to 247bhp - nearly 50 ponies more than the standard GTE. It’ll still be able to drive some journeys using the electric range, and it’ll still trickle around town with all the practised elegance of, well, a Golf.

Would you buy a Golf GTE that looked like this?