Introducing, for consideration… Bespoke Restorations and Modifications, with the BRM Golf Hyperion.
The Aesthetics
The Hyperion takes its basis from the original golf, but the end result is anything but a regular, mass-produced car. A cursorary glance from the front will review a handful of things…
The first change is, of course, the paintjob. Green may be an iconic colour for the Golf, but BRM wanted to go further. The car has been lovingly repainted in a pearlescent blue-green, guaranteed to catch any eyes that are fortunate enough to see it. Second of all, the car has been given replica trim in carbon fibre, suggesting its modern underpinnings, and a custom badge, with BRM’s logotype underneath the existing logo.
Next to this custom badge, we can see the redesigned front-light cluster. The indicators have been moved up into the headlights, and a modern series of LEDs has been put in place behind some diffusion glass. The headlights maintain the classic circular form, but have been redesigned with much more modern and efficient technology and mounted in a sleeker carbon shell.
Progressing to the rear, we can see the same sort of styling philosophy has been continued on the rear. The trim is once more carbon fiber. The taillights are an unmistakably modern nod to the classic Golf, maintaining the rectangular form but with a sleek, LED-fillled design. Astute viewers of this image may be able to spot one more clue as to the vehicle’s nature…
Unlike the original, the restomodded version includes a single badge on the rear, indicating that this is not just a pretty face - it is powered by a V10, which somehow fits into the car.
The Engineering
BRM has worked tirelessly to perfect the car, although that comes with a price. The original panels and chassis has been kept - but everything else is bespoke and brand new. The first step is the afforementioned V10. The new engine is a rather diminutive 2.16L V10 turbo, tuned for smoothness and reliability. Despite producing “almost triple” the power of the original, the engine is as silent as a cloud - even quieter than the original, thanks to using two reverse-flow mufflers in addition to the turbocharger. This silky V10 is mated to a sequential 7-speed gearbox, and even an all-wheel-drive system. The car has zero wheelspin, providing an easy driving experience; the sequential gearbox gives the feeling of sport, without the intensiveness of a full H-pattern shifter.
This all wheel drive system was incompatible with the original torsion beams, prompting a complete redesign; the front now uses Double Wishbone-based independent suspension, while the rear uses a complex Multilink system. With this new suspension comes new hydropneumatic springs, and active swaybars. The wheels are much larger too, with carbon fiber rims to boot. All this power and grip necessitates newer (and far larger) disc brakes. The interior is where the real magic happens. The four seats are laboriously hand-made from coloured leather, and the carbon fiber dashboard contains the latest and greatest in heads-up displays.
The end result is quite a far cry from the original golf. Costing 61,000 dollars and weighing in at over 1.8 tonnes, all of these hyper-advanced systems have come at quite the cost. The car just barely scrapes under the 10L/100km fuel requirement, and all of the comfort in the world makes the car quite challenging to push for laptimes. At the end of the day, however? This is a car more prestigious than any Rolls-Royce.
). I perhaps could’ve also made things clearer to encourage more participation. In general people seemed to have the impression that major changes to the car were not OK, resulting in some not participating at all. Indeed, the people who participated were hesitant to make major changes to the original car, so the “new” label for aesthetics wasn’t even used and there was still a lot of headroom for aesthetics if people had ventured out of the box. Again, I think this was my mistake, I should’ve been clearer on the scoring system.
