How RacingLine and EMPI are Growing the Volkswagen Tuner Market

Unless you're a mega Volkswagen performance fan, you're probably not familiar with RacingLine, the brand behind the VW Jetta GLI Performance concept at SEMA. Turns out they have 25 years of experience in tuned Volkswagen performance, and recently joined forces with legendary VW specialty brand EMPI to expand their presence in the U.S. We sat down with Sam Roach, RacingLine's Managing Director, and Matt Walker, RacingLine's Technical Director, to get the history of the brand, its close relationship with VW, and their future as EVs grow in the Wolfsberg automaker's portfolio of vehicles.

A Motorsports Beginning

Back in 1997, RacingLine started out as a part of Volkswagen Motorsport—partially by the German branch and partially by the United Kingdom (UK) branch—before splitting off into its own brand under a new name. During that time, they were assisting VW's efforts in rally car racing, especially in the British Rally Championship. Around 2001, unfortunately, rallying started closing down as well as the whole of the UK due to an outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease. It was around that time that it went from VW's hands and into private ownership.

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"We took it into private ownership of Volkswagen Motorsports UK with the rights to trade under Volkswagen Racing," said Sam Roach, "and that's how it started. For the first decade or so, we were running the works motorsports programs in the British Rally Championship, we started our own racing championship, the Volkswagen Racing Cup, for a variety of Volkswagens, which was really successful and was a really great championship and the parts program grew out of that." That championship started in 2002 and still continues on in the UK.

Matt Walker added, "We were the dealer for the TCR cars for many years, with a good link to Volkswagen Motorsport, and we've had many solid links there with many Volkswagen family and friends all around the globe." RacingLine's fingerprints stretch all over the world with cars built in Australia, supplying parts for VW's Wolfsburg apprentice program, and other motorsports and VW niche dealers elsewhere.

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VW owners who were looking to put performance parts on their own cars became interested in RacingLine and started asking if they could get the same parts as their racers did for their street cars. "The parts program grew out of our racing and it was somewhere around the Mark Five GTI," said Sam, "We got the very first one in Europe—it was left-hand drive, European one—and nobody was making any parts for it at that point." RacingLine had to go on and make brakes, motor mounts, intakes, and the parts that they are now best known for.

"It then kind of evolved into other race teams saying, 'Hey, can we buy those parts?' and we would be like, 'OK, yeah, sure,'" Sam continued, "Then that sort of evolved into track day guys going, 'All those race guys have these parts, can we buy them from you?' And we again went, 'Yeah, sure.' That's when it evolved into road car guys doing the same thing."

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If only road racing parts were perfect for the street. Racecars, while tough for what they do, don't worry with perfect sealing for tens of thousands of miles, nor worry about brake noise, nor deal with stop-and-go traffic on a daily basis. "We were selling full race parts for road cars, and while they work, that's not the optimum for a road car," said Sam, "That's when we made the decision to actually start doing this with a proper commercial approach. Where we can mass produce things a little bit more and make these parts more appropriate for road and race."

The Beauty of a Common Platform

One of the most fortunate things Volkswagen Group did was invent a modular chassis platform that fits across many of their brands. The MQB is not only a money saver for VW, but also for the aftermarket companies that specialize in these newest platforms. "We're at over 20,000 units of intakes on the Mark Seven Jetta and Golf, we've adopted all of that stuff through to the U.S.," said Matt.

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Since their transition more towards that street-race market, RacingLine has held on to a different approach to their parts. "Our philosophy is how would Volkswagen do an aftermarket range," explained Matt; "We want to be just like that with an OEM plus style. Our software and hardware, we're going to bring all through to the US through our dealer network."

Sam also added: "Our center of gravity is centered around the MQB platform with the Golf GTI, Jetta GLI, Golf R, Audi S3, and European only models like the Seat Leon Cupra. I think I counted 27 different cars that our intake fits on across the MQB platform." Sam says that their motorsports philosophy is also present in that OEM plus one. "We try to keep that motorsport engineering philosophy," he said, "and a lot of our parts are there not just to make the car faster, but also protect it. Doesn't matter if it's a sophisticated gearbox cooler or engine oil cooler, an anti-oil surge system, and wherever these normal OEM parts fail while on track."

Coming to America

While they had a non-zero presence in the U.S., again, they were only really known by the most hardcore of Volkswagen racing and performance fans. With so much success in Europe and the UK, why worry about expanding their current network in the U.S.? "We've been in the U.S. for many years and we're just starting to get a bit of traction here," said Matt; "We want to bring more of our parts over to the US because we know you guys modify everything from ATVs, jet skis, to any car or truck, you modify it and we're keen to it."

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Coming over to the U.S. does pose some big challenges, especially for any aftermarket company working on newer vehicles and touching anything that's considered even a small part of the emissions system. "It's a big buzzword," Matt continued, "and we have quite good things here by doing ISO in the UK, we've done our TUV for Germany, and of course we're going to get our stuff legal for use in the U.S. It's top on our radar."

That's why it was very fortunate that EMPI became the parent company of RacingLine around 2020. "It's quite sort of a neat symmetry," Sam told us: "EMPI is the oldest Volkswagen performance company in the world and they were keen to expand their range into modern cars." EMPI might be best known for parts to hop-up air-cooled VWs like the Type One Beetle, the Karmann Ghia, and the like, but those cars aren't going to be around forever or may become far too expensive to turn into high-performance vehicles.

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That's why EMPI has approached and purchased stakes within companies that specialize in newer VWs and Volkswagen Group vehicles, like RacingLine. "It's really helped us to accelerate," said Sam; "We're a relatively small operation back in the UK and it's always a struggle in bringing new products to market and finding the finances to keep finding the next new product, hit those tooling costs, meet minimum orders, and this has just really freed us up to allow us to spread. That's what's helping us really step up into the U.S."

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While they don't have a huge line on VW's electric vehicle platforms just yet, those EVs are going to get parts from RacingLine soon. "EV stuff is really interesting," said Matt; "We were a really early adopter of the ID3—which you guys don't get, you only get the ID4—and we got one of those early on. We did big wheels, suspension, dress up parts and we wanted to make a really cool thing. EV is really high on our list, but we're all petrol heads, we love it." What really encourages them is the fact that these EVs have a very low center of gravity thanks to the heaviest part—the battery pack—usually also being a part of the floor. This makes chassis balance tuning less difficult as the car has less sway and far more control in the corners.

Even so, these guys are still "petrol heads," as is common to call an internal combustion enthusiast in the UK. They aren't giving up on those MQB and future ICE platforms that come after it, before VW transitions fully to its EV platform across all of its many U.S. and European brands. The proof of that is in the Volkswagen Jetta GLI Performance concept at SEMA 2022, which features suspension and engine upgrades straight from RacingLine. Now with a larger presence thanks to the OG VW performance shop, we expect to really see more amazing Volkswagens like this appearing at shows and races across the U.S.