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VOLKSWAGEN Australia has charged its top-tier apprentices with building a one-off performance-honed version of its V6 turbo-diesel Amarok in an effort to beat the lap time of the Golf GTI hot hatch around Sydney’s Eastern Creek raceway.

Three “high-performing” apprentices chosen from the national dealer network and the company’s own class of workshop apprentices were asked to assemble at the car-maker’s Sydney headquarters this week, but were unaware that the performance vehicle they were tasked with building was a track-going version of the Amarok pick-up.

The lap time they have to beat is 1:59m recorded by a standard Golf GTI at Eastern Creek, and it must be done using a 165kW/550Nm V6 Amarok Highline 4×4 as the donor car.

The team of apprentices has the rest of this week to complete the build, and the Amarok concept will then be shown at next month’s World Time Attack Challenge at Eastern Creek where punters can get up close with the ute and watch the team execute the hot lap.

VW says the apprentices are being led by a number of mentors from Volkswagen Group Australia’s workshop team who will assist, while Bilstein Suspension, Michelin, V-Sport, AP Racing and Shane’s Signs have volunteered their time and products to help the build.

Volkswagen Group Australia (VGA) public relations and brand experience manager Kurt McGuiness said company apprentices have produced exciting concepts in the past and that the Amarok was the perfect vehicle for the project in Australia.

“Volkswagen has a long history of building apprentice concept cars for the annual GTI Conference at Lake Worthersee, Austria, and the cars have always been met with much excitement and fanfare,” he said.

“But, this is Australia – the biggest export market in the world for the Amarok – why not up the ante and have our apprentices build something that will excite and inspire Australian fans?

“The decision to build our own super ute was an easy one.”

VGA national customer experience and capability manager Luka Popovac said the project helps give apprentices invaluable experience.

“It’s great to be able to give our best apprentices a chance to take on such a challenge and, in the process, give them priceless experience working with a range of technical experts from within Volkswagen and the motorsport community,” he said.

VW says the project will be features across its social media channels in the coming weeks.

By Tim Nicholson

Built tough: The team of VW apprentices have less than one week to produce a go-fast Amarok that can outpace a Golf GTI.

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