Here's A Rare Chance To Buy A VW Beetle RSI

At the Geneva Motor Show this week, VW’s R&D boss Frank Welsch confirmed that the VW Beetle is effectively being killed off. There won’t be a replacement for the current version, so once production ends, the Beetle name will once again disappear from VW’s range.

We’re not likely to shed a tear - the retro pastiche, Golf-based machine hasn’t ever been an object of the average petrolhead’s affection, after all. But, there was one version of the earlier, Mk4 Golf-underpinned ‘New Beetle’ which we are rather fond of: the RSI.

This is no ordinary Beetle, as you can tell from the brilliantly OTT bodywork - complete with a comedy-size rear wing - and the orange leather bucket seats in the cabin. The reason for those lairy additions is what’s under the bonnet - a 219bhp 3.2-litre VR6 engine.

This narrow angle sort-of-V6 sends its power to all four wheels via a Haldex clutch-based system, and that should sound familiar, because the Mk4 Golf R32 used the same configuration. Some two years after the debut of the RSI.

The RSI was - in a way - as an expensive, exclusive test mule for the R32, with only 250 of the steroid-injected Beetles built from 2001 to 2003. Today, there are just two right-hand drive cars left in the UK, and that’s had a dramatic effect on the prices surviving cars are being listed for: the RSI you see here is up for auction on eBay with an eyebrow-raising starting price of £40,000.

Quite a figure, especially given that you can have the aforementioned R32 - with the same platform, engine and four-wheel drive system - from about £6000, and the related Mk1 Audi TT V6 for even less. Unbelievably, there are left-hand drive examples being flogged for even more. Yep, the modern classic car market has well and truly jumped the shark.

eBay auction via Lewis Kingston

Update: the auction has since - unsurprisingly - ended with no bids…