The Love Bugbear - VW Beetle RSi

Herbie. Barbie. The annoying girl who always has way too much makeup on. Why are these relevant?
Stereotypes. The Beetle has always been characterised as the Love Bug thanks to the hugely popular movies, Barbie’s wheels or one of the girliest vehicles on the road today. Either that, or Hitler’s whip, but’s let’s not get into that.

“All-wheel drive performance car”, then, isn’t something that maybe darts to mind straight away. Volkswagen have an antidote for that. Meet the RSi. Herbie gone bananas. This is what you get when you take a Bug, a Golf V6 and a mid-2000s mod shop and throw them all in a house-sized blender, and set it to full… blend?
…Anyway, what that provides is a lot of silly, silly fun. Volkswagen’s 4MOTION AWD system is recruited for power delivery, which may seem like overkill, but bear with me. Replacing the standard car’s range of acceptably-powered engines, is the legendary 3200cc VR6. All 220HP of V/inline goodness steamrolled into one fantastic package. Along with the helping hand in the shape of 235 lb/ft of torque, this little bug can hurtle to 60 in a smidge over 6 seconds. 6.2, to be precise

In combination to the adequately huge power gains, the RSi had road-holding to match any sports car of the time. Those gloriously large alloys are wrapped in 235-cross Michelins which keep it firmly cemented to the floor, and the collection of spoilers and downforcey trinkets isn’t for show; the roof-mounted piece channels air downward, so it pushes into the rather extravagant fixture on the bootlid, squishing those sticky Pilots into the floor.

The sportiness doesn’t end on the outside, either. Jump inside, and you are greeted by (at least, on this example) brilliantly orange seats, though that’s merely a leather coat for the carbon fibre corsets that lie beneath. Following the carbon fibre trend, the instrument binnacle has exposed weaving and the doorcard patterns are nicely presented, too. And look at that dinky little shifter, how could you hate that? (It’s a six speed!)

If you like your Volkswagens exclusive, this is about as good as it gets. Including the #000 show car, only 251 were made, all of which in silver besides one. The odd one out was finished in blue as a gift for Ferdinand Piech, VW chairman during the early 2000s, when the RSi was young. He had a thing for blue, and only owned blue cars at this period. I think he had a crush on one of the Smurfs, though most people just think he really, really liked blue. Each to their own, I guess.

Also reserved for Europe alone, with a decidedly ridiculous MSRP of $80,000, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be seeing one out and about. If you’re in America, you’ve got no chance. Better luck next time, in your silly-Beetle-spotting adventures.

Always seen by me as a modern interpretation of a Mulholland-style Beetle, the RSi shows that VW truly do have a sense of humour, and can provide properly nippy vehicles even in their times of cheerful foolery. That concludes this short #blogpost, thanks for reading!