Driving music just got better

Music and driving have always made a good match. From sitting in the back of the car listening to your parents sing along to 80s classics, to the first time cruising the open road with friends. Even though they may not have been the best drives, it was the experience that made them memorable.

To capture those treasured memories, Volkswagen Golf GTI and Underworld have collaborated to create Play The Road – a mind boggling experience that redefines the meaning of driving music.

Highlighting both Volkswagen’s and Underworld’s strong history of innovation, the unique project uses data from the Golf GTI’s engine management system with your phone’s accelerometer to detect every turn of the wheel, gearshift or location change so your drive is always in sync with the music.

Underworld’s Rick Smith

“I think we all felt from the beginning that if it was just an experiment that produced an experimental result, and that was it, then it was going to be a failure. It needed to arouse emotions, as music does. What was really fascinating, was our precision driver, a self-proclaimed non-musician, doing the most beautiful things – performances.”

Underworld’s Karl Hyde

“Driving and music are probably the most important things in my musical education: sitting in the back of my dad’s car at night. It was a filmscape to me, it was beautifully lit and the dashboard was magical, and radio Luxemburg or some pirate station was on the radio and that was everything to me. It’s still the root of why I love music. Being in a car surfing the radio, finding stuff that suits how you feel.”

Unfortunately the Play The Road app is not commercially available, but you can win a track day in the GTI MK7 with the app by entering an exclusive competition here: https://vw-playtheroad.fbincludes.com/