Table of contents for June 2023 in Performance VW

Obviously, when selecting feature cars, there has to be something about the vehicle in question that appeals to me and my own personal taste for us to include it in this publication. Usually, though, there are a few elements that I would probably change or have done differently if the car had been mine. In fact, it’s very rare that I bag a feature car which I personally deem absolutely perfect in my eyes. That’s why this month’s cover car, Jay Turner’s Mk4 ‘R25’ (P8), is so special, because I wouldn’t change a damn thing about it. Not one thing… From the 2.5-litre (hence the ‘R25’ badging) turbocharged, five-cylinder RS3 motor swap - which looks like it left the factory that way - to the colour-coded Recaro A8 seats and…

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 VOLKSWAGEN ID.7 FINAL TESTING PRIOR TO LAUNCH At the time of going to press, the camouflaged ID.7, VW’s ID. Flagship model, was undergoing its final test drives in Alicante, Spain prior to its launch on April 17th. The new ID.7 will enhance the upper mid-size class in Europe, China and North America. Volkswagen plans to increase the share of its electric models to 80 per cent in Europe by 2030. The new ID.7 is an important milestone on this path, as it is scheduled to be launched in Europe before the end of 2023. Kai Grünitz, responsible for Development, explains: “With the ID.7 we have exploited…

Forty-year-old Ralphie originally hails from the Big Apple but now resides in the Sunshine State of Florida with his young family. “I have been interested in VWs since I was four or five. My uncle Myron had a triple white 1974 Beetle. I have very fond memories of cruising around in that car with him and I started to naturally gravitate to Volkswagens.” Ralphie’s first car was a 1985 Buick Regal that was gifted to him by his uncle Myron. He made the move to VWs when he bought a 1984 Rabbit GTI back in 1997. This had been modified by its previous owner and sported a tuned 8V motor, Koni Cup suspension, Neuspeed strut bar and exhaust and, if you hadn’t already clocked the upgrades, an oh-so-nineties huge Nuespeed…

If you were reading the 99.9% of articles published anywhere these days – be it online clickbait or print – and you saw a first sentence teaser like the pages previous, you’d be kept waiting either most of the way through the article for the full story, or the story wouldn’t even come at all, but I’m not gonna do that to you; this isn’t clickbait after all. You may have guessed from the title and opening image to this feature that the bumpers on Marcus’ T5.1 aren’t plain Jane ABS, but have been painted with UPOL Raptor textured Bedliner paint. If you’re not familiar with Raptor, it was invented as a hard-wearing spray-on liner for pickup truck beds in the good ol’ US of A as a black textured…

Launched as a boundary-pushing halo model back in 2002, it’s almost impossible to imagine later generations of the Golf bloodline without the contribution of the Mk4 R32. This was the complete package; a blend of six-cylinder noise and performance, four-wheel drive grip and the sort of understated muscular presence hot Golfs had lacked since the Mk2 Rallye. If the Mk1 GTI stake a claim to laying the foundations of the water-cooled scene, then the dawn of the R era reset expectations all over again. Today, the Golf R has become a mainstream part of the line-up, and the original R32’s boundary-pushing has helped it to mature from a modern classic to a classic in the collectable sense of the word. But while the ageless styling all-weather performance still stacks up,…

Although it seems to have a knack of being bitterly cold and even snowing whenever it’s held, the arrival of Ultimate Dubs each year is a sure-fire signifier that another show season is very nearly upon us. The fact that a large portion of this VAG show takes place within Telford International Centre’s heated innards certainly helps matters, too, providing a unique, classy backdrop for some of the finest German modified cars from around the UK and beyond. This year’s event provided a familiarly impressive mix of jaw-dropping motors inside the various capacious halls, from squeaky-clean standard classics through to perfectly-stanced modern metal. Combined with the usual top-notch traders, live extreme sports action and a DJ all keeping the crowds entertained throughout the day, it reminded us just why Ultimate…

All cars need cooling systems, even the most basic of vehicles. The bigger and more powerful a car is, the bigger and more numerous the cooling components tend to be, and this counts for both standard and modified cars. When it comes to tuning or simply using your car hard, you create more heat, which in turn gives the standard cooling system more to cope with. When you reach the limit of the cooling system, you can suffer from a loss of performance, reliability issues, or both. That, is when upgrades are needed. WATER RADIATORS Presuming you’ve not got an old-skool air cooled engine, your car will, without a shadow of a doubt, have a water radiator. And in fact, you may have more than one! As we’re sure you…

APRIL 30th THE DRIVERS COLLECTION Magna Science & Adventure Centre www.thedriverscollection.co.uk 30th STANFORD HALL Stanford Hall, Leicestershire www.stanfordhallvw.com 30th DUSTOFF Thompson Speedway, New England, USA FB: New England Dustoff MAY 1st BHP SHOW Kent Showground www.bhpshows.com 5-7th VANWEST Taunton Racecourse www.vanwest.co.uk 6th MK2 MAYDAY Lebanon, New Jersey, USA www.mk2mayday.com 7th EARLY EDITION Sywell Aerodrome www.edition38.com 7th EUROBUILT SPRING SHOW & SHINE Franklin County Fairgrounds, VT, USA www.eurobuiltvt.com 18-21st TUNING WORLD BODENSEE Messe Friedrichshafen, Germany www.tuningworld.be 19-21st DUBS AT THE LAKE McHenry, MD, USA www.dubsatthelake.com 20th FORGE BRUNCH CLUB Forge Motorsport, GL2 5EU FB: Forge Brunch Club 20-21st RETRO RIDES WEEKENDER Goodwood Motor Circuit www.retro-rides.org 28th PETROL BROTHERS Wielsbeke, Belgium www.petrolbrothers.be JUNE 4th PLUS FOUR FOUR AUTOMOTIVE Hartham Park, SN13 0RP www.plusfourfourautomotive.co.uk 8-10th L8NIGHT Eurospeedway, Lausitz, Germany www.l8-night.de 9-11th VW TUNING…

If you had any doubt that the Euro scene is still very much alive and well in Florida, then UroTuning is proof of that. In fact, the company ships throughout the whole of USA, plus many other countries and doesn’t just focus on European cars. “We called the event the ‘UroTuning Grandish Opening’, due to the fact that we had already been in the space for about 4 months and already had people coming through to the shop prior to the event, said UroTuning Marketing Manager, Nathan Fugleberg. The event in question was to mark the opening of UroTuning’s all-new 40,000 sq-ft HQ in Tampa, Florida after out growing their previous 10,000 sq-ft unit. “We had anticipated roughly 200 cars, but we quickly had our expectations blown out of the…

Since leaving school, 40-year-old Charlie Pearce has worked at his family business, a garage in Bath. This has given him a huge breadth of experience in the motor trade and his daily grind is never the same, carrying out anything from an MOT test to a full engine rebuild. Before he could drive, Charlie was already getting his hands dirty. His automotive journey started when he was just 15 with a Mk1 Astra GTE. Characteristically, rust took its toll on the poor little Vauxhall and it was replaced with a Nova SR which was the first car Charlie drove on the road. A brief foray into Fords was enjoyed in the shape of an Escort GTI before returning to the griffin with an Astra Coupe Turbo. Charlie explains how he…

A brief dive into recent memory serves up the Lego-themed Golf Harlequin on the April 2018 cover, but the forebear of frivolity that is the Polo Harlekin has never had its moment of fame. Until now. A quick housekeeping note - Harlekin and Harlequin are the same thing. One is just the German version. We’ll let you figure out which is which. But what exactly is a Harlekin? There is an unsubstantiated connection suggesting that VW tapped into a clever Doyle Dane Bernbach ad from the 60s showing a Beetle sedan in a variety of colours to celebrate the introduction of the third-generation Polo. Another referenced how Volkswagen used different color blocks for ordering a new 6N model and how they communicated this new idea to the public by way…