History captured on 35mm

Way back in the stone ages, when 17s were the wheel to have on ANY VW, be it Mk1, Mk2 or Mk3, Josh was was the photographer for PVW here in the states. This was when Greg Emmerson was the editor and things were just heating up in terms of really nice cars from the USA which were honestly feature-worthy for said magazine. One of the guys, who is still around with a grip of Rallyes and various rare beasts, was Scott Norton, who was absolutely at the top of the heap in '99 with his Mk2 GTI VR6. The spec read like a who's-who of parts to have back then: MJ Interiors suede covered Recaros, super clean VR6 swap. 17" MAM wheels, Yoko A520s, badgeless grill, no flares, bright paint, big bumpers, M3 mirrors, Mercedes sprinter van vent in the passenger side fender, Audi door handles and a centrally parked single wiper kit. Don't forget the tilt-n-slide sunroof! Heck, it was probably rocking AVO coilovers.



At any rate, Scott and Frank ('the biz') made the long, long trek all the way to Baltimore for the shoot. I'm not sure why Josh didn't meet them halfway... Maybe it was to get a shot of a car with the famous Domino's Sugar sign in the background? Could be. Maybe Josh was lazy. (just kidding!) More than likely it was just worth traveling for the honor of having your car featured in PVW. Not to say it's easy to get one now, not by any stretch, but there is definitely a higher quantity of feature cars from the US now compared to back then.

Regardless of why, I certainly thought the bright yellow Mk2 looked cool with that sign, as I snapped a pic with my trusty 35mm point and shoot, and I know for a fact Josh had some outstanding shots of the car with the sign in the background, but they were never used. Figures. It was a great shoot, with great people, and certainly is a nice little bit of the USA VW scene's history caught on film. A perfect little time capsule of what was really cutting edge when things were really starting to get big. You'd be some kind of scene-genius if you rolled this out of a cocoon for one of next year's shows.

_WRS