Thursday, 28.03.2024 | Deutsch | English
VW soon back into Truck Racing?

VW soon back into Truck Racing?

17. March 2008Something is brewing at Volkswagen – that was an open secret. But compared to the large media coverage regarding Porsche’s increased activities at Volkswagen, the almost simultaneous press release about the assumption of the Scania shares from the Wallberg family and their investment company by Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge went nearly unnoticed. When, some time ago, MAN tried to take the reigns at Scania, this caused a whirl of excitement. Now Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge owns almost 69 percent of voting stock; together with MAN, where VW is involved with 30 percent, they have got even more than 85 percent. But what has all this to do with truck racing?
As is well known, Volkswagen was enormously successful when they were active in European truck racing in 2004 and 2005, with their pilots Markus Oestreich and Ralf Druckenmüller being the last two title holders in the SuperRaceTruck series. At the same time the VW Constellation, a truck designed for the South American market, made quite a splash on all circuits and, at some races, served also as a pace truck. But when the SuperRaceTruck era was over, Volkswagen had no adequate vehicle that would be competitive in the RaceTruck series. Moreover, bringing the Constellation onto the market in the near future was not relevant. It wasn’t as if a vehicle with a rather simple structure, compared to the European heavy trucks, would not have attracted interest in Europe, but Volkswagen was simply lacking the necessary service infrastructure. The workshops for Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge are construed for 5 t Crafter commercial vehicles at the most.
The recent activities in Wolfsburg, Stuttgart, Hanover, and not least in Södertälje, probably serve the purpose to fill the gap within the all-encompassing automobile concern. In the passenger car sector – with different models of Volkswagen, Skoda, Seat, Audi, Porsche, Bentley, Bugatti, and Lamborghini – they already offer a wide choice of cars for every taste and every budget. And the same will apply to the commercial vehicle sector in future. While the Volkswagen trucks will meet the demands for slightly lower price segments, the Scanias are in the premium category. And in the background there will be MAN.
In the last two years it was always said in Hanover that Volkswagen would make use of the platform ‘truck racing’ at any rate, should heavy VW commercial vehicles be put on the market in Europe. Let’s wait and see, what will become of it. The truck racing series could only benefit from it; after all, nowhere is the old saying “competition is good for business” more applicable than for motor sports.