We Unofficially Beat a Nürburgring Lap Record in a Diesel Caddy Van

Towards the end of last year myself and Darkside Developments came up with a plan to see if we could ‘unofficially’ become Nürburgring lap record holders. I can’t recall exactly how this discussion started, but it must have something to do with seeing Guy Martin’s Super Van take the lap record, and thinking “we could beat that…”

Like a lot of you I quite enjoy Guy Martin’s TV shows, if I see it on the box I’ll gladly tune in to see what he’s up to. A few years ago he built a combination of a Ford Transit and a Noble Racecar, which resulted in the aptly named “Supervan” - a Transit Custom powered by a 700hp, mid engined, twin turbo V6.

If you didn’t watch the show it’s well worth checking out, and Guy ended up taking the van to the Nürburgring to see if he could take the lap record there, previously held by Dale Lomas. Guy smashed the record by nearly 30s, with a full lap time of 9:28.0.

Finding out the actual van records is a bit difficult as it's not something that's tracked that well, there isn't an official league table as such. We all remember Sabine and Clarkson trying to get the Transit under 10 minutes. It’s important to note the difference between a full lap time, which is what all the official records claim, and a BTG lap time, which is what you’ll see ‘normal’ people claim from tourist laps.

If you’ve followed me for a while you’ll know I spent my early days at the Nürburgring trying to ‘sub8’ my Integra, something that I was never actually able to achieve (my best time was 8:00 BTG!). To go under 8 minutes ‘Bridge to Gantry’ in anything is an achievement, in a van it would be exceptional...

Anyway back to Guy, he was actually set to improve on his time by around 6s, when towards the end of the lap an oil line burst causing a fire in the engine bay. Guy proceeded to ignore the fire hoping to finish the lap, but the van had other ideas. The doucmentary is on YouTube now if you'd like to see it: https://youtu.be/ga0nwn_Tot4?si=VtIBJKxZFxolqEcA

Let’s address the elephant in the room, is the Caddy a real van? It’s a “CDV”, which stands for “Car Derived Van”. It’s smaller than a Transit that’s for sure, which means it’s lighter, more aerodynamic, and should be faster out of the box. What complicates this argument is that Guy’s van was no ordinary Transit either. Transit’s are well known for their 8x4’ carrying capability, but good luck getting a load in the back of the super van. The Darkside Caddy can still take a full sized pallet, and actually drove itself over to the Nurburgring loaded with tools and spare wheels. So is the Caddy a ‘real’ van? I will let you judge that, but I’d argue it’s more van than the Supervan was!

Let’s talk about the Caddy itself. It was originally built a long time ago by a lesser known Darkside brother, Stef, who operates SRS Automotive. One of the companies specialties is unlocking the potential of Caddy vans, either by converting parts from other VWs to make them more road friendly (such as rear seats), or upgrading the engines. This van was built to demonstrate what could be done to a Caddy, not from a motorsport perspective, just as a bit of fun.

(note - the van wasn't running any aero at the Nürburgring)

The running gear is from a VW Tiguan 4motion, which uses the 2.0 BiTDi CUAA. That’s one of VWs best 2.0L diesel engines, the same engine used in Darkside’s race winning Audi TT race cars, and in this configuration capable of putting power down to all 4 wheels. The stock power figure is impressive enough, around 240hp, using VW’s BiTurbo technology, but Darkside of course took it a step further. The van has one of their turbochargers fitted, and with a few other supporting mods is capable of putting out around 360hp, which was detuned to around 300hp for the track to ensure longevity.

So how did this van end up at the Nurburgring? Darkside acquired the van from SRS, but didn’t really know what they were going to do with it. At the same time I’d gone a bit Nürburgring mad, stating that 2025 would be for me, the year of the Nerdburgring. Compile that with a love of driving fast, we set our sights on the van lap record. 

Until writing this blog, I had the record down as 9:22. It was only after doing a bit of research on the super van this morning that I realised that no, the actual recorded lap time was a 9:28. A very reasonable time for a van, but I was confident I could beat it. But could the Caddy?

Our first test session in the Caddy was at Donington Park in December. I booked this day myself too so I could test my blue M3 after making some changes, a theme that has been present recently. Unfortunately by the time I got to drive the Caddy, it was NLA. The van was still in its ‘show’ era, it was not upgraded for track yet, and this was exposed by it shredding (and puncturing) one of its front tyres before I was able to drive it. Oh well!

 

Darkside fixed the van, installed a fresh set of Yokohama A052 tyres, and tried to put a more motorsports derived wheel alignment on. The van didn’t fancy returning to Donington Park though. After being in their workshop for a few days, the mechatronics unit (big brain/hydraulic stuff) on the DSG gearbox failed. The van didn’t make the trackday. 

A few weeks later, and with a new mechatronics unit, the van made it back to Donington Park and I could finally test drive it. My initial impressions were good, but there were some things that we’d need to address if it was to survive a lap of the Nürburgring. The van was murdering the front tyres, and the brakes despite being quite large Brembos from a Porsche, were not up to the job. Capacity wasn’t an issue, but they were getting far too hot. It was fast though, we’d calculated we’d need to lap Donington in under 1:25 in order to be around Guy Martin’s time at the Nürburgring, and we’d done that, with scope for more.

Another week or two passed, and Darkside invested in some top of the line Brembo race calipers with all the proper cooling, lightweight 2Forge wheels, and had managed to gain some much needed more camber for the front tyres. The next circuit we’d visit would be Croft, but again, the Caddy had different ideas. The night before Croft I took Scott to get a proper parmo as we waited for the van to arrive, but it never did. Back in Barnsley, on the test drive before loading up, the van began to misfire. Not a huge job for the Darkside team to rectify, but as they were busy loading race cars, their primary focus for Croft, the Caddy would have to miss another test day. 

We’re now into April 2025, the month of the Nürburgring trackday (another thing I’d booked for the blue M3, but nevermind!). I was going over there in my MR2 soon, and Darkside were going to be away for most of the month with other activities. We had 1x day remaining to test the Caddy, a trackday at Oulton Park. 

I’d just got my MR2 back on the road so headed over in that, it was a glorious day so the soft top was dropped. When I arrived it was the first time I’d seen the van since it had the “motorsports package” applied. It looked very much like a race van, capable of going fast at the ‘ring, but would it drive ok?

Oulton Park is a tough track, we’d estimated around a 2:10 lap time would be good enough to beat the Supervan, but would the Caddy be able to do 4 laps flat out? I spent most of the morning in the van, and it was glorious. The new brakes were amazing, and they had all the ducting they needed to ensure they would stay strong throughout the day. The brakes were no longer an issue. How about the handling?

We now had around -4 degrees of front camber, meaning our tyre temp spreads were very even, but there’s no getting around physics. The van weighs 1700kg with driver, but the maximum tyre size under the stock wheel arches is a 235/40/18. That tyre size might be ok on a 1300kg E36, but a heavy 4motion van, not quite. I was having to be very careful with the front left tyre. We observed temperatures over 100c on the surface at one point, which is far too much. 

I suggested to Darkside that we needed more tyre budget up front, but that could only happen if we modified the front wheel arches, something that might ruin the silhouette of the van, something they really didn’t want to do. It’s still a van afterall!

It was decided that we would make do with the tyres as they are, and I’d just have to be mindful that the front left tyre was very easy to overheat. I managed several 2:00 lap times at Oulton in the van, Scott even managed a 1:59. To be sub2 at Oulton is a very good achievement, easily comparable to going sub8 BTG at the Nürburgring. The van was fast!

That’s enough waffle, let’s get to Germany. We’d booked a 2 day trackday hosted by Circuit Days. Trackdays are not a place where you should be setting lap records of course, and that’s  why we have always stated that this is not in any way ‘official’, it’s just a bit of fun. The van has a VBOX data logging system, which we hid from the driver whilst out on track, then reviewed afterwards. There was no live timing information being sent to the driver whilst on track. 

I started the first day in my car, waiting for Darkside to arrive in the afternoon. They’d just returned from a weekend racing at Croft, where they’d won the Club Enduro championship 150 minute race in their diesel powered Audi TT. If you’re not familiar with that championship it’s well worth a look, it has to be one of the most competitive club motorsport series in the UK right now. 

The Caddy arrived accompanied by one of the Amaroks, a Volkswagen convoy of 2 commercial vehicles loaded with crew, parts, and a smidge of Yorkshire optimism. After a spanner check and a quick clean I headed out on track for a reconnaissance lap. As the lap time set by Guy Martin was a full lap of the Nordschleife, and we were starting our lap at the TF entrance, I’d needed to travel a couple of kilometers on track just to get to the start line. I took it real steady on the out lap, squeezing the van occasionally, but I knew that this day was going to be spent ironing creases. 

My first lap finished without issue and the van was feeling good, on the second lap I decided to squeeze a little harder, only to find the van went into limp mode about ¼ of the way in, heading towards Fuchsröhre (Foxhole). I managed to limp the van back to the pits, after several restarts, but it would immediately go back into limp mode if I started to drive quickly. Something was wrong. 

The Darkside team got to work immediately. On the trip we had Tom on data, and Rueben on the spanners. They found that there was a fuel pressure issue, thought to be caused by the tank not ventilating properly. The fuel tank on the Caddy is not original, that 4motion conversion meant that the original tank had to go, and the tank that had caused us no problems on previous testing had now decided to not ventilate properly. This caused a drop in fuel pressure, and for safety the van put itself into limp mode. 

The motorsports solution to this was simple. Remove the filler cap, and instead install a rag to stop any fuel from being able to slosh out. This did cause the inside of the van to smell a little, but it did mean we had fuel pressure, a price worth paying. 

After the repairs were made I headed out for another lap, but this time we had a new issue before I’d even got to the bridge. A boost pipe had popped off. The van runs around 3bar (45psi) of boost pressure, it’s quite a lot, and boost pipes have been an issue. I was able to pull off at T13 and luckily the hose wasn’t damaged, so was able to be reconnected and the van was back out on track promptly. 

Just as I was about to start my lap, the red flags came out. There had been several incidents on track including a Porsche which had crashed, so the day was over. A successful first test in the van in some regard, but we’d only completed one lap, and it was my very first. Still, the lap time showed we had pace. The only recorded lap on day one was a 9:02, some 26 seconds quicker than the lap record.  

There were a lot of positive vibes floating around at the start of day 2. The van had been spanner checked, the fuel pressure issue was fixed, and now had brand new Yokohama A052 tyres up front. The previous day was done on the Bridgestone Potenza tyres that the van drove over on, a similar tyre to the A052, but now we had a fresh set of Yokos which transformed the feel of the front end. We were among the first cars out on track that morning and I got 2 good flying laps under my belt, each lap was faster than the one before it, as my confidence and familiarity with the van grew corner to corner. 

Those 2 laps were pretty good, and we were well in the clear of beating the record, but I knew I could go faster. I wanted to go out for 2 more laps shortly after, but unfortunately another problem arised as we prepared the van for another run.

The 4 wheel drive conversion isn’t something that really belongs on a race car, nevermind a race van. People are often surprised to learn that the Audi TT race cars which Darkside run are front wheel drive, not quattro. There is a time and place for 4 wheel drive, and that is not often a race track. I don’t think there was a moment on track, or in any of the testing, where the haldex actually kicked in to prove any more speed out of corners. If anything we were just dragging it around, a fair few kilograms of deadweight, providing no benefit and costing lap time. Remember this van was originally built to display the work that SRS could do, not what would be best around the Nürburgring. The DSG gearbox is also something that despite being very good, is not my favourite way to shift through gears.

I’d noticed on my first laps of the day that the gear shifting didn’t seem quite right, and the team were suspicious that it was the DSG gearbox overheating, and it had begun to play guessing games when downshifting. This is far from ideal when entering a corner, and there are plenty of those on the Nordschleife. We did find a small weep from the oil cooler fitting for the gearbox, which was easily resolved, but it seemed perhaps the cooling was not enough for the level of challenge that a fast lap of the ‘ring was proposing. 

I headed out for another 2 laps, mindful that I would need to be careful with the gears. I was also being very sensible with the front left tyre, doing all I could to make sure I didn’t load it any more than it needed to be. I had to be smooth. 

The next 2 laps were my quickest by far. I was carrying much more speed through the corners, and despite having a few ‘wrong gear’ moments, the Caddy seemingly had enough torque to overwrite that. After those 2 laps we decided to call it a day on the lap record attempts, the van hadn’t yet been driven by Ryan or Scott, and afterall, it had to drive home yet.

I completed 5 full laps in the Caddy, with a target to beat of 9:28.0, my laps were as follows:

LAP 1 - 9:02.08

LAP 2 - 8:41.87

LAP 3 - 8:36.44

LAP 4 - 8:28.73

LAP 5 - 8:27.58

So yes, success! By over 1 minute, (1:00.42, to be exact), we’d beaten the Supervan, and the Caddy was now perhaps the fastest van to lap the Nürburgring.

Another exciting time was the Bridge to Gantry (BTG) time, which although not quite fair to claim from a trackday, was a very respectable 7:58. A sub8 van!!!! My out lap on the final session was an 8:02 BTG, straight from the pits, so I don’t think it’s too unreasonable to suggest that this van could go under 8 minutes on a tourist session.

The challenge was complete, is the Darkside Developments 2.0 TDi Volkswagen Caddy now the fastest van around the Nürburgring Nordschleife? Am I a lap record holder? Well officially no, but was it a lot of fun? Of course it was. Just to lap that fast in a diesel car is unheard of, never mind a van. 

Thanks to Darkside for building and trusting me to pilot the van. If you haven't already seen them, the 2 fastest laps from the trip are below.

Watch Darkside's preview video of the attempt here: