The American general public seems to have a love-hate relationship with hot hatches and sport wagons. But where the US market hasn't come around to the hot hatch's many advantages, the rest of the world knows all about the form, which translates to the fact that a plethora of hot-hatch models never make it to these shores. Perhaps the only hot hatch to achieve a modicum of consistent success here is the Volkswagen GTI and its higher-spec variant, the Golf R — and Volkswagen makes a bunch more hatchbacks for RoW markets. Case in point is the VW Up, which looks like something between a Polo and a Smart car. But few Up owners would ever think to go as far as owner Charlie Roberts has in building his little front-wheel-drive hatchback into a nitrous-boosted drag racer. And yet, Roberts recently hit the Santa Pod Raceway and logged some pretty impressive times in his peppy little two-door.
Burning (Front) Rubber
Hilariously, while many Golf-based drag-racing hatchbacks switch to an all-wheel-drive layout employing 4Motion components, Roberts has decided to retain his front-wheel-drive setup and just shred rubber with big front tires, instead. As demonstrated in the YouTube video and a series of Instagram posts, the front axle is powered by a 2.3-liter narrow-angle VR5, which is paired with a five-speed gearbox from a Mk4 Golf. Roberts has even decided to forego turbocharging, instead opting to keep the little screamer naturally aspirated.
Turn Up The Sound
The sound as the little Up launches is worth a watch of the video by itself — maybe even the 7 Up-inspired "5 Up" graphics that suggest Roberts has a good sense of humor about the car should serve as such. But the lightweight Up nonetheless manages to impress thanks to a shot of nitrous, plus nine-inch wide racing slicks at the front, which together allowed him to set a personal record by notching a quarter-mile at 12.745 seconds and a trap speed of 106.79 miles per hour. The YouTube channel VeeDubRacing claims that makes Roberts' Up the fastest in Europe.
Sources: youtube.com and instagram.com.