VRR PHAA Has Landed

We’ve put together numerous project vehicles over the years. From a Nissan Navara with 38inch wheels to a Toyota Hilux 2.4GD-6 ‘motorsport edition’ to a turbocharged Daihatsu Terios. But of all the vehicles we’ve fiddled with, this Haval H6 C just may be our favourite.

- Danie Botha

VRR PHAA

It’s a straightforward chemical reaction that occurs in vehicles fitted with dual clutch gearboxes. When the system changes gears, the ignition is momentarily cut off and the excess fuel in the system ignites, causing a mini explosion. Or vrr phaa.

It’s a sound initially made famous by the Volkswagen Golf GTI, fitted with the brand’s dual shift gearbox (DSG). Audi, BMW and MercedesBenz now have similar sound effects in their respective performance derivatives.

Here in South Africa, vrr phaa has become sacrosanct. Songs have been written and recorded about it. Traffic officers stop vrr phaa cars just to listen to their sound.

In 2016, former Minister of Transport, Dipuo Peters, even implied vrr phaa cars could have had an influence on the high accident rate, saying the exhaust systems on these cars “can cause sparks and cause vrr phaa”.

It’s this very sound that sparked an idea, almost a year ago, when we were driving our bog-standard Haval H6 C. It also has a dual clutch gearbox, and in some instances, if you listened carefully, there was the faintest of vrr phaa when changing between first and second gears.

In time, two other factors came into play. We figured out the Haval’s two-litre engine is essentially the same mill which powered the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo performance car, albeit in a very different state of tune.

And secondly, the H6’s fuel consumption proved to be a bugbear. As cool and comfortable as the 140kW/320Nm Coupé was, we could not achieve an average consumption of less than 13 litres/100km.

When a Land Rover Discovery Si6, fitted with a supercharged V6 engine that delivers 250kW/450Nm and weighs about double the Haval’s 1 600kg, the compact Chinese SUVs consumption becomes a bitter pill to swallow.