8. 2006 Volkswagen GTI W12-650
Don’t let the GTI badges fool you: this isn’t a Golf GTI. It wasn’t, as we discovered during a brief drive in 200x, fully functional – gearshift paddles and ESP buttons were for décor only, and the battery functioned only to power the cooling fans — not the starter, or any other portion of the electrical system. But oh, what a wild creation the W12-650 was. In the vein of Group B rally weapons like the Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 and MG Metro 6R4, engineers plunked an insanely powerful engine in the space normally allotted for a rear seat. In this case, the engine was a 650-hp twin-turbocharged W-12 borrowed from a Bentley Continental. That sort of power allowed engineers to boast a theoretical top end of over 200 mph and a 3.7-second 0-60 mph launch time, but as we found, putting that sort of power down without spinning proved challenging.
