Inhoudsopgave van February 2025 - Performance VW

We’ve always claimed that some of the best things to happen in PVW over the years have been as the result of an accident or happened by chance. I guess that’s kind of true when it comes to this month’s illustrated cover. You can’t have missed it, that’s for sure. Yes, we had always intended to run Charles ‘The Humble Mechanic’ Sanville’s RS3-swapped, widebody Mk7 on cover. As soon as the car arrived back home to North Carolina - after its recent trip to the SEMA Show - we planned a to get a conventional cover shoot in the bag. Being bright yellow, with a widebody kit and motor swap, the car didn’t need too much help in jumping off the cover! In one of our recent podcasts we had…

GDF MK2/3 BILLET HUB ASSEMBLY Not a month goes by when the guys at GDF AutoFab don’t realise a new product. This month, it’s the turn of its stunning Billet Front Hub Assembly. GDF claim these are not for the faint of heart and are a step-up up from the off-the-shelf solutions available. Made from 7075 billet aluminium, these uprights are design from the ground up based on the factory Mk2/3 geometry, making them a direct replacement application. The hubs use Mk4 Golf R32 wheel bearings, which offer superior strength/durability and are held in place with custom 7075 bearing holders and high tensile hardware. OEM quality 5x100PCD drive flanges are used but these can be drilled to 4x100 on request. The modular design allows users to adjust kits to suit…

O In the realm of the automotive counterfactual, precious few are as intriguing as the midengined ‘skunkwerks’ quattro built and tested on the sly by a handful of ‘in the know’ Audi engineers behind the Iron Curtain in 1985, a car subsequently known to history (but never as such by its maker) as the RS001. The story - an almost impossibly compelling mixture of guile, subterfuge, and engineering nous - has all the makings of a Hollywood classic, complete with a rancorous conclusion that has left the Audi faithful pondering what might have been - nay, should have been-had fate not intervened. As it was, fate conspired to subvert Audi’s hopes and frustrate the ideals of anyone whose pulse raises at the sound of a bigboost five-pot mounted amidships. Despite…

O Ryan LeBlanc hails from Merrimack, which is in the American state of New Hampshire. The 45-year-old petrolhead was tinkering with cars while still in high school and owned a 1988 Chevrolet Beretta at the tender age of 16. A 1990 Ford Mustang followed and then the Volkswagen bug took hold: “I’ve been into VWs since I bought my first Jetta in 1998 when I was 19. It was the first car I bought after I graduated high school and there was something about a Jetta that spoke to me, I preferred them to their Golf stablemates. Whilst I would have preferred a GLX, my budget at the time dictated that it was to be a GL. I’m not really sure what the fascination is but no other car brands…

As an event organiser, one of the things I dislike the most is comparing events directly with each other. All events, for the most part, are unique. With that said I am now going to compare Essen Motor Show to SEMA. Essen Motor Show is better in every possible metric than SEMA, and it isn't even close. Let me explain… SEMA is for many a bucket list trip, one of those events that is always on the "to visit list". It was a hard position to argue against for a long time, it often premiered some amazing builds, it was large and exclusive. Over the years it has got larger and larger, now it has added public entry days and a music festival to its schedule. Along side that it…

JANUARY 9-12th AUTOSPORT INTERNATIONAL NEC, Birmingham, UK autosportinternational.com 10-12th TOKYO AUTO SALON Tokyo, Japan tokyoautosalon.jp FEBRUARY 31st JAN-1st FEB EURO TRIPPER 12 Fort Myers, Florida, USA eurotrippersshow.com 7-9th SA CAMP FEST Bela-Bela, South Africa sacampfest.com MARCH 2nd RISENATION - HALL OF FAME Nekkerhal, Mechelen, Belgium @risenation_be 9th ULTIMATE DUBS Telford, UK ultimate-dubs.co.uk 23rd VOLKSWORLD SHOW South Of England Showground, UK volksworldshow.com 28-30th GT SHOW SUZHOU Suzhou, China gtshow.cn APRIL 5-6th DUBSHED Lisburn, Northern Ireland gtini.com 5-12th VW GOLF CHALLENGE 10TH EDITION Morocco vwgolfchallenge.com 11-12th WOOKIES IN THE WOODS Fontana Dam, NC, USA wookiesinthewoods.com 13th TUCKED AT THE MUSEUM British Motor Museum tucked-automotive.com 13th AUTO CULTURE Doncaster Racecourse, UK autocultureshow.co.uk 13th CLASSIC VW CUP Brands Hatch, UK classicvwcup.com 26th DUBS AT THE LAKE McHenry, MD, USA @dubsatthelake 26th LAPS FOR JESUS…

Charles Horatio Sanville was born in 1934 to parents Edgar and Dorothy in A Town Called Malice near Kathmandu. Actually, none of that is true, but we felt dutybound to provide perhaps the only remaining information we don’t have on him or the 2019 Golf R he’s both repaired and modified… Better known across the interweb as The Humble Mechanic (youtube.com/@HumbleMechanic), Charles has attracted almost one million followers to his car repair world on YouTube. With more than 1000 videos attracting in excess of 201 million views and counting, it feels as if almost half of the videos are devoted to his Golf R. The actual number is currently 49, but we suspect he won’t stop there… After graduating tech school in Illinois, Charles trained with VW for a few…

Performance VW: Yo, Ethan, how are tricks? Ethan Krieger: Elliott! Things are good, great to be talking with you all these years later, both of us still doing the same things! PVW: It feels like 8380 has always been there. When did you form the brand? EK: The unofficial beginning was November 2004 with a VWVortex thread announcing our first batch of shirt designs for sale. Officially, it launched in 2008. PVW:Was it started as a T-shirt brand, a car club or something in between? EK: It started as a way to pass time for two VW enthusiast friends working their first design jobs after school at a terrible direct mail marketing company. We were on Vortex all day at work, and we just started making topical shirt designs that…

Having been building model cars since the age of 16, Kris has spend the past 20 years perfecting his amazing skills. He currently owns more than 150 completed models of various states of tune with an amazing 600 boxed kits to build in the future. We ask him how this model came about and his tips on becoming a model car modifier. PVW: Did you buy the current model new or second hand? Kris Hoekstra: The model was bought second hand. The 3d printed parts were bought new. PVW: What size is the model and what material is the shell made from? KH: The size is 1/24 scale. The original kit is made from plastic, the bodykit is resin 3d printed. PVW: Was it always your intention to modify the…

Held in Mohnton, Pennsylvania, Mk1 Madness is the brainchild of one Esher Lvtzo but rather than being a sponsored event chasing attendance figures and dollars on the gate, this show is all about the love of one particular VW - the Mk1 Golf. Esher has been a pillar of the Mk1 community for many years now. His first ‘Madness’ was started circa 2009 and it fast became a must-attend event for anybody into Mk1-platform cars. It has grown to what we think is a true enthusiast event; not only about the cars, but also about the people. The weekend is hosted in a campground in the rolling hills of Mohnton PA, right in front of the Maple Grove Raceway. Hearing the drags in the woods, makes this something full of…

After two days enjoying the “coffee” in Amsterdam, we headed to what I believe to be the most iconic MK1 ever built (we’re not going to disagree - Ed), housed in a building I’ve wanted to visit since the Vortex era. The car belongs to Michael Koordt from K-Tech and is, of course, his iconic (ex Jägermeister) Orange GTi. You know the one we all saw in PVW at Essen years ago, slammed on three-piece ATS wheels, Heigo cage, fully smoothed floors & bay… full carbon dash and more chrome than a spaceship in a 1950s comic… and that was built back in 1996! When we arrived at K-Tech, we were greeted with a huge selection of carbon parts — small bumpers, e-brakes, rearview mirrors, door pulls, handles, lips, interior…

While spending a large proportion of its time focussed on making VAG cars go faster, it’s reassuring to know that renown Canadian tuner, HPA Motorsports also takes an interest in how they stop, too. In fact, the team at HPA has just announced it’s new all-singing Stage 3 Big Brake Kit for the Mk8 Golf R. Up front, HPA’s floating 370x34mm disc 6-piston Big Brake Kit ($3999.00) comes with Ferodo Racing DS2500 pads and is engineered to revolutionise braking performance, offering what it claims to be unmatched stopping power for both track and street applications. Tailored specifically for the Mk8 Golf R, this upgrade delivers a dramatic improvement over the OEM solution, making it an ideal choice for high-performance vehicles. This kit also saves 6 lb of rotational mass per…

Every time you write something new by taking existing words and rearranging them in a way that hasn’t been done before, you add to the creative fabric of the universe. There might be previously penned passages, similar in idea or concept, that permeate your subconscious, but your unique combination of consonants and vowels is what gives it your fingerprint. You might be saying to yourself, I feel like I’ve seen this Bud-themed livery before. Was it blasting around the high-banked oval or gobbling up the 1320? Maybe your brain is playing tricks on you and the last time your eyes registered it was when you opened your fridge. Regardless, this ain’t no tale about Dale Earnhardt, junior that is. “I worked in major appliances my whole life due to the…

Call us biased if you like, but nothing captures and preserves a moment in time quite like print media. While forum threads and social media posts disappear, distilled down to a highlight reel as time erodes everything else, wading through a stack of old magazines can give an unfiltered, unedited hit of nostalgic inspiration – and few sections highlight change better than the classifieds. Those of us who live for the older end of the water-cooled line-up probably didn’t realise how good we had it back in the early 2000s, when Mk2s were cheap and plentiful and the parts to keep them on the road were almost disposable. Even the trash has become treasure in the meantime, and the rarest variants and parts almost unobtainable in presentable condition. Setting your…

JUSTIN TILGHMAN (RIP) We’ve seen some awesome tribute cars over the years, but this Mk4 has got to be up there with the best of them. Justin sadly passed away after being struck by a drunk driver in May of 2022 in his Mk4. His parents, Kim and Mike Bellone, decided to build a tribute car in his honour. “It was his dream to have one of his cars featured in your magazine,” Kim told us. As his previous Mk4 had been too badly damaged in the crash, the Bellones actually managed to buy the same car Justin had planned to purchase before he passed, which his uncle, Anthony Andreoli, located in Vineland, NJ. Justin and his uncle had talked about doing a 24v VR6 swap in his original Mk4,…

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