Volkswagen Revives The Golf GTI W12 For GTI’s 50th Anniversary

There are few more legendary nameplates in the automotive world than the Volkswagen Golf GTI. The famed hot hatch is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and to celebrate, Volkswagen spruced up some of the Golf GTI’s most famous concept cars. That includes the legendary Golf GTI W12-650, which traded in its white paint job for a more striking red.

The Golf GTI W12-650 Is The Wildest GTI Ever

For those somehow unaware, the Volkswagen Golf GTI W12-650 is a concept car from 2007. The name was anything but cryptic. It is a Golf GTI packing VW Group’s 6.0-liter W12 engine, which puts out 650 metric horsepower (641 hp using American units) and 553 pound-feet of torque. It could accelerate from zero to 62 mph in just 3.7 seconds.

Atypically for a Golf GTI, it was rear-mid-engined to accommodate the massive powertrain. VW removed the rear seats to position the engine behind the driver. And it was rear-wheel drive rather than the GTI’s traditional front-wheel drive, not unlike the old Renault Clio V6.

VW always intended the Golf GTI W12-650 to be a one-off concept. Even by 2000s pre-economic crisis standards, placing a 12-cylinder engine into a production GTI was too nutty of a prospect to contemplate seriously. The concurrent production Golf GTI packed a 2.0-liter inline-four with 200 hp and 207 lb-ft of torque.

VW Group Did Use The 6.0-liter W12 In Several Other Production Cars

Volkswagen never put the twin-turbo 6.0-liter W12, derived from VWs famed VR6 engines from the 1990s, into a Golf. But the VW Group ultimately used the engine in more than 100,000 production vehicles. VW used it for the W12 Phaeton sedan. And Bentley put the engine in the Continental GT along with several other models. The British brand only recently retired the W12 from vehicles like the Bentayga SUV in favor of a new V8 plug-in hybrid setup.

The Golf GTI Has Not Been Selling Well In America

Volkswagen launched a refreshed Mk8 Golf GTI for the 2025 model year. It earned critical acclaim, despite losing the enthusiast-preferred manual transmission option. But sales numbers for the latest Golf GTI have been brutal. VW sold just 7,235 Golf GTIs in America in 2025. That tally was a 34.7% year-over-year decline from 2024, and it meant that the Golf GTI accounted for just 2.1% of VW’s overall sales mix. The rival Subaru WRX, despite having its own sales issues and inventory problems, outsold the Volkswagen Golf GTI and Volkswagen Golf R combined in 2025.

We suspect the Golf GTI is more profitable on a per-unit basis. But hatchback sales figures are approaching the bleak numbers that forced VW to kill the base Golf hatchback in America for the Mk8 generation. More than 80 percent of Volkswagen’s American sales are now crossovers. The car division suffered a 26.6% year-over-year sales decline in 2025 and was a major reason the brand’s overall sales totals fell by 13%.