It is a sad and dark time for Volkswagen fans as the Wolfsburg automaker quietly announced the official end of its famed and beloved VR6 gasoline engine. The news hails from a LinkedIn post by Andreas G. Schleith, one of the company’s communications managers for Volkswagen’s Passenger Car division. Schleith posted the update and wrote a brief eulogy for the iconic engine, which ended production on December 12, 2024.
The death of the VR6 is not surprising. It’s an unfortunate result of the environmentally conscious times we live in, all in a bid to phase out the automotive industry’s dependence on carcinogenic fossil fuels. And with the push towards electrification, pretty much all of our favorite internal combustion engines that we’ve come to appreciate and love over the past three-quarters of a century are all limited on time.
But for car and Volkswagen enthusiasts, the discontinuation of the VR6 hits home and hits it hard, since it would be the same as if BMW or Porsche sent their iconic gasoline six-cylinders into the great automotive junkyard in the sky. It’s just downright sad and heartbreaking.
Remembering The Great VR6 And The Lovely Noises It Makes
If you remember minding your own business one day and suddenly, a Volkswagen emanating unique six-cylinder noises zipped by you as its engine spooled up, chances are, it had a VR6 under the hood. That is the most recognizable aspect of the VR6: its soundtrack. It’s completely unique to any other six-cylinder engine ever made in history, and that’s all because the VR6 itself is very bespoke, from both design and engineering standpoints.
Born in the 1980s out of necessity to make a new, versatile, powerful, and compact mass-produced transverse-mountable engine for front-wheel-drive use, Volkswagen engineers developed the VR6. Taking inspiration from old Lancia V4 and V8 engines, which were history’s first narrow-angle Vee engines, Volkswagen embraced the concept as the company found that it fit their requirements at the time.
A narrow-angle Vee engine essentially combines the cylinder block designs of both inline and Vee engines by alternating their arrangement in a W-pattern with the cylinders angled at 15 degrees between each other, versus linearly on an inline-six, or at 60- or 90 degrees in a conventional V-6.
Additionally, whereas a typical Vee motor has two separate cylinder banks with three cylinders placed in a straight line on each bank, the cylinders in a VR6 are arranged in a single bank, similar to an inline-six. The result is an extremely compact engine package that’s narrower in both width and length than a conventional V-6. But it’s also one that’s smoother while allowing for more displacement than an inline-four.
Because of the VR6’s unique cylinder arrangement and overall design, the VR6 shares a single-head assembly. And because that common head assembly leaves no room for a separate intake manifold, its intake and exhaust valves are both on their own individual sides with, at most, two camshafts. Since there’s no need for more than two camshafts, the VR6 also benefits from greater simplicity over other types of six cylinders. Early 12-valve VR6 engines depended on a single camshaft, whereas later 24-valve variants depended on a dual cam head.
All of this required using the firing order of a straight-six, versus a typical V-6’s. Combine all these engineering attributes together, and you get the Volkswagen VR6’s unique soundtrack.
And well, just listen to it….
The concept of a narrow-angle engine was successful, and Volkswagen engineers continued employing the narrow-angle engine design for some of its other iconic models. This includes the B5 Passat’s W-8 engine and even Bugatti’s W-16 in the Veyron and Chiron.
Celebrating 34 Years Of VR6
The etymology of “VR6” stems from the words, “Verkürzt” and “Reihenmotor,” which loosely translates to “shortened inline engine” from German. But together, it denotes that the engine features the characteristics of both a Vee engine and an inline engine.
The VR6 first debuted in 1991 in the Volkswagen Corrado and upper trims of the B3 Passat. It later went on to serve duty in upper trims of the Golf, Jetta, the Transporter van, New Beetle, the Touareg, Atlas, Phaeton, and even the Porsche Cayenne. Volkswagen also used it in other vehicles within its corporate portfolio, such as the SEAT León, a couple of Audis, Škoda Superb. Other manufacturers outside Volkswagen AG have also contracted its use in their own vehicles over the years.
Today, the last employment of the VR6 in the U.S. market ended with the discontinuation of the first-generation Atlas crossover SUV earlier this year. Elsewhere in the world, the VR6 was last sold in the Chinese market Volkswagen Talagon full-size crossover SUV and the gas-powered Audi Q6.
Although it’s a depressing time to be a Volkswagen fan, with over 1.87 million units made to date, the VR6’s legacy will still live on as one of the greatest internal combustion engines ever made.
Source: LinkedIn
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