Just a few years ago, the various marques of the Volkswagen Group competed in a wide array of top-level motorsports. But that was then. These days, you won’t see Touaregs tackling the Dakar or Polos dominating the World Rally Championship. Audi and Porsche have pulled their hybrid prototypes from Le Mans and the FIA World Endurance Championship. And no VW Group brand is represented in Formula 1, Indy, or (unsurprisingly) NASCAR, either. Audi still competes in Germany’s DTM touring-car series and, as Porsche soon will, also backs a team in Formula E. But that’s about as close as any Volkswagen brands get to a factory racing effort nowadays.
The world’s largest automaker hasn’t given up on motorsports, though. It’s just taking a different approach. In fact, the Volkswagen Group produces a stalwart array of competition machinery. But instead of spending millions fielding those machines itself, it has built a business around selling its race and rally cars to customer teams. If you have a big enough budget, you can buy one, too. Volkswagen

For $113,000 plus shipping and taxes, Volkswagen will hook you up with its Golf GTI TCR. The racer is based on the familiar hot hatch but adapted to compete under the cost-conscious TCR regulations embraced by the newly amalgamated FIA World Touring Car Cup and a network of national and regional touring-car series around the world. VW has delivered more than 75 of them since 2015, including seven in the ...