Nine-Second VW Golf Drags Ford Mustang, Teaches It an FWD Versus RWD Lesson

Sure, most race drivers would advise taking an RWD or AWD to the track rather than an FWD vehicle. But there are exceptions, even in domains where the rear-wheel drive and AWD generally rule supreme, such as the quarter-mile encounters at the local dragstrip. Alas, there are always those who like to swim against the current.

Or, in this case, fit the cookie cutters where they generally don’t belong – aka on the rear axle. That would be the case with LT Motorsports and their Mk7 Volkswagen Golf, a European compact car legend that has morphed into a quarter-mile dragstrip hoot after it adopted the Americana lifestyle. But there is no need to take our word for granted.

Instead, here is a great excerpt from its regular days (and nights), courtesy of the videographer behind the Drag Racing and Car Stuff channel on YouTube, who brought us a trio of passes with the white-and-black VW Golf Mk7 to support the latter’s record-breaking FWD case. First, to properly put this little rascal into the proper perspective, there is a quick night skirmish between the German hatch and a Ford Mustang taking place at Palm Beach International Raceway in Jupiter, Florida.

True, the latter is an older SN95 representative, but it did show promise with a couple of pops and bangs across the flame-prone exhaust setup. Alas, it was all in vain because this Golf left nothing to chance and jumped out of its lane like a Hot Hatch rocket to secure an interesting 10.51s victory against the 11.22s pass of the Americana muscle car. Well, that was already some shame brought to the RWD fame, right?

But it could have been much worse, as the next pass revealed a 10.45s solo from Orlando Speed World Dragway in Bithlo, Florida and that is where we noticed the skimpy cookie cutters adorning the rear wheels and the chunky front tires! Well, as it turns out, this is a record-breaking machine – first with a 9.99s time and most recently with an even better 9.771s result!