As well as blowing out 40 candles on the Golf GTI's birthday cake, Volkswagen launched a super-fast Clubsport S version of the car, the fastest Golf GTI in history. Then immediately drove it to the Nurburgring to set a new front-wheel drive production car lap record.

The lightweight model, which produces a staggering 308bhp, then drove a 7min 49.21sec flier with 28-year-old German racing driver Benny Leuchter at the wheel, beating the Honda Civic Type R's 7min 50.63sec record lap by more than a second. Which is staggering when you consider that a Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 E-Gear made it round in 7min 47 sec.

Now, VW released this deeply German on-board video of the lap (electro, much branding, boy-racer graphics) but to get a true sense of Leuchter's lap this unofficial footage shows you the level of commitment required to drive incredibly quickly in a hopped-up shopping cart around the world's most demanding race track.