Sorry I haven’t been writing much lately — the new job and weekend travel have kept me quite busy — but I just had to post this one.

Volkswagon has thrown down the gauntlet with their latest creation: the VW Golf GTI W12 650 Concept. That may seem like a long and cumbersome name, but all is forgiven once you see what it’s got under the hood in the back seat: a 12-cylinder engine producing 650 horsepower and 530 ft-lbs of torque, resulting in a 0-60 time of 3.7 seconds (which, while blisteringly fast, I think is probably conservative, and with some really sticky rubber it could probably go even faster).

That’s more horsepower than an M5, Viper, Vette, Gallardo, Murcialago, and pretty much every other exotic save for the 1000-hp Bugatti Veyron. And it’s in a car the size of a shoe! This thing must be the ultimate beast to drive.

How cool would that be to get assigned that project: “OK, I want you to take the smallest car we make and the biggest engine we make, and then put them together and get something really light and stupid-fast.” The engineers must have been grinning like idiots. Too bad VW’s not going to sell it.