Table of contents for Autumn 2022 in Performance VW

This month we’ve devoted the mag to the 1980s - a decade that was both a pretty important period and an exciting one for water-cooled VWs. It saw the launch of the second-generation Golf GTI, a more refined hot hatch that retained the drivability of the original Mk1; the all-new Corrado - a sexy sports coupe built by Karmann with a whole string of engine options available; and the supercharged, all-wheel-drive Golf Rallye, a rally-homologation special of which there were reportedly only 5000 ever produced, plus many more. The minimal but vivid Euro-look movement exploded on the European modified scene, a style which quickly filtered over to UK shores and was largely responsible for the launch of this very magazine later on in the 90s. Not surprisingly, those bright colours,…

Got a product, service or offer you want our readers to know about? Email: pvw.ed@kelsey.co.uk with all the details and we’ll make it happen KW TO EXPAND GERMAN HQ KW has just begun ground works at its headquarters in Lichtenberg, Germany in preparation for construction of another production hall, including a development centre and administration offices. Having already excavated over 16,000 cubic meters of soil the new building structure is scheduled to start in September and expected to be completed by the end of 2023. The owner-operated suspension manufacturer plans to use the new production facility to manufacture more of its electromagnetic proportional valves for semi-active and active coilover suspensions and shock absorbers. In addition, the modern machinery for order-related production will be expanded to provide the company more flexibility…

AVW technician by day, a Ghostbuster by night, John Vanek is a dedicated VW head all around. Yes, we said Ghostbuster! Proton Pack, Ecto-1 (B5 Passat wagon), and all the trimmings. Basically, John is part of a team of Ghostbuster re-enactors who enjoy movie prop building from the Ghostbuster franchise and does commissioned builds of replica screen accurate props from the Ghostbuster movies. But that’s a conversation for a later date… John’s VW journey started many moons ago in his teens. A friend at the time had a ’97 Jetta GT in five-speed manual form. John was intrigued with the transmission, as he’d never seen a car with a ‘stick’ trans before and this piqued his interest straight away. More and more he saw how easily VWs could be modded…

The year is 1988, the movie License to Drive (what a film - Ed) is in the theatres, and the star of the show for us VW heads was not the two Coreys, but a white Mk1 Cabriolet. Here today, though, is a prime example of an ’88 Cabriolet, but not like the star of that movie… or any others you’ve have seen for that matter. This is a prime example of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, who ate Little Red and stole her cloak (see what you did there - All). Please say hello to Brandon Quail. He’s a 35-year-old Automotive Engineer with a love of cars, well powerful cars. Brandon has had 19 cars and thankfully only 4 of those were non VAG cars! The rest are a…

SEPTEMBER 16-18th DUBS AT THE GAP Lake Shore Dr, Flintstone, MD, USA 16-18th GRILL-N-CHILL The Hop Farm, Kent www.grill-n-chill.co.uk 17th RALLYDAY 2022 Castle Combe Circuit, Chippenham www.castlecombecircuit.co.uk 18th RETRO RIDES GATHERING Mallory Park, Leicestershire www.retroridesgathering.com 25th EAST COAST MK3 SHOW Spruce Run Recreation, Clinton, NJ IG: EastCoastMk3 25th OH SO RETRO The Rec, Margate www.ohsoretro.co.uk OCTOBER 2nd GTI FESTIVAL Santa Pod, Wellingborough, UK www.santapod.co.uk 8th EURO DISTRICT Jeffersonville, IN, USA FB: Euro District 2022 16th WATER DAYS Nagano, Japan IG: @_waterdays 22-23rd 100% TUNING LIVE Rotterdam, Holland www.100autolive.nl NOVEMBER 6th ULTIMATE STANCE Telford International Centre, UK www.ultimate-stance.co.uk 2023 JANUARY 12-15th AUTOSPORT INTERNATIONAL NEC, Birmingham www.autosportinternational.com Got an event? Let us know! email us at: pvw.ed@kelsey.co.uk with the date, location and website and we’ll get it on these pages!…

How many of us can think back to our first modified car and, looking past the ghastly parts choices, smile at our tuning accomplishments? How many of us are still at it with that same vehicle over a decade later? I know this embarrassed author was super proud at the blocky ‘BORA’ badge he stuck to the trunk of his Mk3 Jetta, only to replace it years later with a proper Vento appliqué upon completion of a full Euro overhaul. The shell of that car is languishing in a Massachusetts junkyard somewhere, if it hasn’t been crushed already. Regardless of our regrets, our juvenile choices helped guide and mold us into the enthusiasts we are today. Forest Benner, a 29-year-old caulking professional from Middleburg, Pennsylvania, has owned this 1982 Rabbit…

Last month we lost a good friend, the magazine lost a valued contributor and the modified car scene lost a legend in the sudden passing of Tony Saggu. We first featured Tony’s multi award-winning Mk1 Cabrio back in 2004 and instantly became friends with the south-London raised, Californian-based car nut. It wasn’t really a surprise we got along, either, as Tony was that kinda guy. Totally obsessed with cars, Tony was just one of those good guys who saw no bad in people, would always help anybody out and genuinely didn’t have a bad word to say about a soul. While Tony was fond of his ‘Euros’, he seemed to possess a vast and almost uncanny knowledge for every type of modified car and scene. From the Hot Rods and…

GTI SPRING FESTIVAL SANTA POD, 10th APRIL GTI Spring Fest is the first fix of the year for most VW enthusiasts with an action packed day ahead featuring RWYB, the VWDRC and Dizzy Rascals. Some VWDRC members had already been out for the pre-season test day but this was the first of the official VWDRC 'Heads Up' series. The only rules to this series is that your vehicle has to be a 'doors car' (not a dragster or funny car), to be VAG powered and quicker than 11.99 on the strip. As well as the VWDRC the track was open all day to all VAG Run What Ya Brung (RWYB) to interspace the heads up racing. This giving participants plenty of time to get in lots of runs down the…

The recent increase in fuel prices has left most people feeling that driving a car is expensive. Whilst you can shop around every time you fill up, use your car less and drive more sedately, there are other ways to save even more money. We are talking about the hidden costs of running a car, such as servicing and using the right oils, flushes, cleaners and additives. In the long term, this should help reduce the risk of problems that could in turn cost even more money, but is it worth spending so much on good-quality oils and extra on cleaners and additives that may or may not be proven to work? We asked the experts at LIQUI MOLY for the answers. GOOD GRADES Q: We realise it’s important to…

"Anything other than the most sedate of driving would trigger a carnival of dash lights and error messages" Tony Taylor @drive2write Performance VW IN FOCUS! TONY TAYLOR, SUB EDITOR PROJECT: BIG SEDAN 12_A7 3.0 V6 TDI S-Line Started: March 12, 2021 Comments: Time flies when you’re having fun and, as it’s been almost a year since we introduced his latest ‘project’, we’d assume Tony has literally been living the dream in his A7 TDI. #TEAMPVW Elliott Roberts @elliottdukeroberts Mike Kippen @mikekippen Jason Dodd @jasondoddphotos) Tony Taylor @drive2write Phil Weeden @phil100100 Bryan McCarthy @beardedmugmedia Jamie Orr @xjamiexoe Alex Grant @alexgrant_uk…

Clearly, the new model is not just a cosmetic package and in order to prove its superior dynamic ability Volkswagen took the Golf R 20 Years to the Nürburgring-Nordschleife to record a lap time of a good 4 seconds faster than the standard Mk8 Golf R. TCR racer and Volkswagen R development driver Benjamin Leuchter was the man tasked with proving the superiority of not just the additional engine power (333 PS) but also the dynamic effects of the R-Performance package, Vehicle Dynamics Manager and R-Performance Torque Vectoring features. Benny, you may recall, was the man who recorded a new lap record with the GTI Clubsport S, back in 2016, when he logged a lap time of 7 minutes and 47.19 seconds. With similar power output to the Golf R,…

Bobby Mahi doesn’t do things the easy way. It’s a quirk of the Volkswagen scene that the Scirocco is hardly a common sight at shows anyway, and you’ll find fewer still with the sort of world-class attention to detail woven into this one. But the expanding collection of trophies it’s earned since it broke cover last year isn’t hung on the hard graft of a household name bodyshop. The mile-deep gloss of its Sonoma Green paint, and the painstaking restoration beneath it, are his own work – and he’s not your typical bodywork expert either. “I’m a policeman, so I’m not in the car trade at all, but I’ve always said I could paint a car,” he tells us. “My friends didn’t believe me until I got my first opportunity…

For a great many years the high-performance flagship for Volkswagen was the Golf GTI in its many forms, covering four generations and numerous variations on the theme, from the 110hp 1.6-litre of the original Mk1, through 136PS with the Mk2 16v and 150hp with the Mk3 16v, up to the 180hp of the turbo 1.8-litre 20v in the later versions of the Mk4. The GTI developed still further with the Mk5 version in 2004, with many arguing that it was effectively re-incarnated with the 200hp turbocharged 2.0-litre 16-valve engine, but events in the early years of the millennium saw that it was no longer the leader of the pack. We’d already seen the advent of the 2.8-litre VR6 engine in the Passat and the Mk3 Golf (and Vento) in the…

The first, and easiest, problem to solve was the dent in the quarter. A quick Insta chat with a local dent specialist and he was on his way to my office to check out the damage. I picked him based on the quality of some of the cars on his Insta page. However, when he arrived, we both kinda recognised each other. He made very short work of the dent, having it repaired within a few minutes. He also checked over the body for any other dents that I might have missed. We got talking as he worked and that’s when the penny dropped. It was none other than Paul Walker of former Caddy feature fame (PVW 07/16). I hadn’t written that feature but had worked on it. I hadn’t…