Earlier this month, Volkswagen announced its plans to abandon all naturally aspirated engines to become the very first automaker to offer turbocharged engines, exclusively. Engines including the 2.5 liter five-cylinder engine and the 3.6 liter six-cylinder engine will retire in favor of engines like the 2.0-liter turbocharged 4-cylinder TSI engine.
Some industry observers suspected Volkswagen may be embracing the turbocharged 4-cylinder engine layout. Now, Volkswagen has announced that a VW 6-cylinder powerplant will live on. The German manufacturer is pushing development for a new turbocharged narrow-angle VR6 engine. Volkswagen's Fritz Eischler is in charge of the engine department. Eichler previously served for the engine development of the current line of Mercedes-Benz AMG engines.
The new turbocharged V6 engine for Volkswagen will heavily apply designs from the VR6, this time built to run forced induction. The new turbocharged 6-cylinder will keep the 3.0 liter displacement, and the compact 15 degree cylinder bank angle. According to anonymous insiders, the forced induction system will boast twin-turbochargers in order to provide the engine with a broader rev range of torque.
The twin turbocharged VR6 engine will be transversely mounted for better packaging. The engine will be similar to the set up found in the Volkswagen Design Vision GTI unveiled at Austria's Woerthersee event back in May. The twin tubo V6 in the Design Vision GTI boasted 496-hp and 413 lb.-ft. of torque.
While the production twin-turbocharged VR6 engines will not be as aggressively tuned, experts expect output to fall between 340-hp and 450-hp. Previously, the outgoing VR6 produced a maximum factory power output of just 296 hp in the limited-run VW Passat R36.
The new twin-turbocharged VR6 is expected to power a number of midsize Volkswagen models including the next generation Volkswagen Passat, Passat CC, CrossBlue Concept, and possible the next top-spec Scirocco.
