The Nurburgring attracts all kind of petrolheads regardless of their rides, all looking forward in going around the infamous and challenging Green Hell. And when we mean ‘regardless of their rides’, of course we are also referring to Sabine Schmitz’s record lap around the circuit in a commercial Ford Transit van for Top Gear, setting an impressive 10 minutes 8 seconds.
This amazing attempt had somehow inspired VW Group tuning specialist Revo for them to do the same, and the lucky candidate picked by them for this stunt is a Volkswagen T5. And since they are VW tuning specialists, the T5 was tinkered a bit to give out more power.
The 2.0-liter Twin Turbo Diesel is given an ECU remap, Milltek “turbo-back” exhaust system and a Forge intercooler/oil cooler combination, producing 220-horsepower for the massive commercial carrier.
But Revo did not only focused on the power as the chassis was also tuned through the addition of Bilstein’s B14 coilover kit, Team Dynamics wheels and a set of sticky road legal Dunlop Direzza tires.
Driven by Nurburgring veteran Dale Lomas, he managed to take the not-so commercial vehicle around the Green Hell in 9 minutes 57.36 seconds, instantly beating Sabine’s record. But they had actually done more than that as Lomas took the T5 through the full circuit, which is 1.61km longer than the ‘bridge to gantry’ lap done by Sabine in the Transit.
