The 90’s were a crazy time for advancements in the automobile industry. Volkswagen needed an engine which was as compact as a four-cylinder and produced the power of a six cylinder. They wanted to save space and build an engine which could easily be mounted in front wheel drive cars as well as AWD cars. They developed the VR-6 engine and it was an instant icon but VW spokesperson Andreas G. Schleith shared that the last VR-6 was produced on December 12, 2024, ending production after 34 years.
The VR-6 engine had a very unique configuration, the usual 45-90-degreee angle V6 took a lot of space so Volkswagen chose to have a V-angle ranging from just 10.5-15-degrees, sharing a common cylinder head for the two banks of cylinder. It was an ingenious idea and the VR-6 was not much bigger than a inline-four but significantly more compact than a V6. This meant that VW could mount this engine transversely as well.
The engine lived a long life and sizes ranged from 2.5L to 3.6L, it was put into Volkswagens, Skodas, Porsches, Seats, and Audi. The engine was still being put in cars in the Chinese market. The last ones being the Volkswagen Talagon and the ICE Audi Q6 (somehow that exists). The VR-6 went on to be the baseline for engines like the W-12, which Bentley produced the last of recently, the very rare W-8, and also the W-16 which powered the Bugatti’s. There were also VR-5 iterations of the engine which powered even smaller cars like the Golf, Beetle and Bora.
We also got the VR-6 engine in the Indian market. While it was available in Porsche’s and Audi’s, it was most notably found in the Skoda Superb which had the naturally aspirated 3.6L VR-6 engine. It produced 260 bhp and 350 Nm of torque and sent the power to all four wheels. It is an incredibly rare option that was taken by only a handful of owners.
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