Back on track soon...

Just a quick note that things will be moving back into gear as soon as I'm back home. I've got a show to work this weekend and it pretty much takes up every hour of everyday, and kicks my ass in the process. I'll have some pics and info from the outstanding weekend at Limerock Park and the Koni Challenge race, plus this weekend's Dubs at the Beach...until then, have a good weekend!

Continuing the theme: Der RennTaxi

I'm busy getting ready to head to Lime Rock Park tomorrow for the Koni Challenge race, so while I'm busy chatting up the folks at APR and hopefully getting some outstanding shots and info, please enjoy these videos of other 911-powered VW bus's. The Race Taxi might be the coolest, but the Vanagon's at the Hockenheim Ring are pretty nuts as well. Although the project we posted up below won't be 500hp fast, it should be an insanely fun car (van? bus?) to drive. We can't wait!

_WRS

Check out the faces that the passengers make in this one...priceless!



When white Vanagon gets sideways, it's a highlight...



Finally, another race taxi vid, in car.

Sneak Peak, at an undisclosed location....

What is this I spy...behind the Blue 993 track car...

It's a VW Panel Bus! A few weeks ago I managed to snap a few pictures of one of the cooler works-in-progress that I have seen in quite a while. Here we have what many would probably consider sacrilege. A very god condition, California sourced, rust free, 1950's split window VW Panel Bus. Double doors, very cool. This is a pretty rare Volkswagen; one that 99% of the old school air-cooled heads would give up their first born and their first dog for. (probably their first Hacky Sack too, hahahah! I kid, I kid!) Check out the travesty! OH NO!

Anyways, this bus was deemed the perfect starting point for a 911 swap. Sure sure, it could have been kept as is or just freshened up, but this baby is getting a whole new lease on life, and I can assure you that it is going to end up 100 times better than your average Cal-look slammer. A 3.2 Liter 911 flat six, 911 brakes, 911 steering, 911 suspension, vintage 1970's 911 wheels, and of course, slammed to the ground. All done the right way. It's still a work in progress, but you better believe that when it's done we'll be doing a full report. Try not to salivate too much...

_WRS

Pic post: Rally -vs- A59

Since the Golf A59 and Rallye Golf are both distant cousins of the same basic idea, I figured it would be easy to wrap up these two features we've done on the two with the combo pics that Blacksquirrel had in his bag of tricks. It really was a unique opportunity to shoot a Rallye and the A59 kitted GTI at the same time and place, and I'm glad we have access to Josh's extensive catalog of images. Enjoy!

_WRS

Full Feature: NGP Rallye Golf VR6 Turbo

As I alluded to in my A59 post, I almost crunched the one-of-a-kind rear quarter panel of that car with the NGP Rallye Golf Turbo VR6. This car was also sourced from Canada now that I think about it, although at the time it was pretty much bone stock minus a set of coilovers and the VR6 swap. Some purists might scoff at the fact it has a VR swapped into it, but considering it was brought over to North American minus an engine, it really only made sense to put in a VR6. A G60 would be harder to source, harder to make good power with, and beside all of that it would never be quite right: The G60 motors which came in the Golf Rallye models is different than the Corrado G60 versions. Minor changes perhaps, but different nonetheless.

This car was built by Ed at NGP as an all-engine, no frills street / track monster. Built 2.9 bottom end, ported head, Techtonics cams, monster turbo, Autronic stand alone management 3.5" downpipe and exhaust, the works. At 29psi it made 550whp, which is around 640hp to the crank. That was on a C16 mix, which it obviously didn't run on all the time. On the street it ran 15psi on pump (about 380whp) and occasionally we ran it on pump 100 octane, and around 23psi (around 450whp). When Blaksquirrel shot these pics it was on that 100 octane set up.

As I'm sure Josh can attest to the speed at which this car could accelerate with the gearing it as running. A 5-speed 02A with Peloquin differential was originally in the car, but it stripped 3rd gear during a tuning session, and a Quaife 6-speed box was available, so hey, why not, The 6-speed trans was not really set up for a turbo...the gears were a bit short to be honest, and it could get through them in a hurry. I was in the car with Ed on that trip and let's just say this car has no problem topping out 6th gear. It would accelerate in 5th gear like most cars do in 2nd.


On that particular run it was just third....fourth......fifth............sixth..............done. All I can really say is that I don't want to be going that fast in a Mk2 anytime in the near future. We were probably going around 155mph to 160mph (speedo wasn't hooked up), and the effects of low and high pressure zones developing around the car were starting to become quite clear. The hood (carbon fiber) was flexing quite a bit, but it's when the headliner of the car started flapping and moving around that I was like "uh oh..." That was the point that we had reached terminal velocity though so Ed stomped the brakes and we were back down to normal speeds in no time.

Luckily Ed was smart enough to fit brakes up to the task of slowing a 2500lb car from 150mph in a heart beat. RPI big brake kits, 13" rotors with Wilwood calipers, were fitted at all four corners, and they could take care of pretty much anything you threw at them.

A hydraulic line-lock was used for e-brake function, and the bias was cockpit adjustable. I drove this car before this was installed, and let's just say you didn't want to hit the brakes too hard. The rear tires would lock up well before the fronts, meaning you were probably looking sideways, i.e. spinning out if you made a panic stop.

There was not much else to this car. FK coilovers with special Shine Racing springs, Team Dynamics 17x8" et20 wheels, a Spec Stage 5 clutch, Sparco seat and wheel, color matched cage, some gauges, and no radio. That no radio bit was a real boon for me personally. At the time that NGP had this car I was typically a "go to" guy for being behind the wheel of these cars for shows.

It was both an honor and a displeasure. Driving a 600hp+ Mk2 with all wheel drive, a race-firm suspension, race seat, race harness, race clutch and no stereo was a dream at the beginning of a drive. It was LOUD, it was FAST and it was FUN. After an hour or two behind the wheel the exhaust drone would begin to make your thoughts wander. Songs would pop into my head and swim around, the rumble of the tires over broken pavement would add to the effect....my own little percussion section for my little prison of a car.

After a show...12 hours or more of hard work, packing and unpacking, selling, barely eating, no time to relax, driving this thing home was the LAST thing any sane person would want to do. I can recall one fateful trip home from Waterfest in 2004 or so. It was raining hard, the traffic was terrible (that clutch made that one even worse), and the VR6, monster turbo and 3.5" exhaust made the cabin feel like a sauna. No A/C by the way. Fogged windows, driving behind the NGP truck, transmission making noise, exhaust popping and spitting. By the time we arrived back in Maryland I was fit to be tied. That wasn't the last time I drove the Rallye to or from a show, but it was when the shine began to wear off or me.

Ed raffled off this car in 2006, and it ended up in Tennessee, the lucky winner treating it fairly well, but it ultimately spun a bearing and ended up sitting for a while before the raffle winner sold it. I know who has the car now, and I know more or less what the owner has in store for it. I can't say much else really, and it'll probably be a couple years before the Rallye shows its face again, but the owner is a die hard enthusiast, a smart enthusiast, and chances are it'll have even more power than it did before. Yikes.

_WRS

The 3rd "A59" - NGP Racing's VR6 Turbo Mk3

I've been privileged enough to drive one of only three Golf A59's ever built...with genuine A59 body parts. Okay, it was not a REAL A59, in fact it was far from the real deal, but I'd be lying if I wasn't completely beside myself at the time. So what's the story on the 3rd A59 body kit? Read on dear friends and I shall explain.

Back in the early 2000's, around 2003 or so, was when I first heard of an A59 existing outside of Germany. The fact that it was inside of North America was really mind blowing, and when my boss bought the car and it showed up on a trailer completely covered in dirt and road salt, my mind was even more blown. How in the world did it end up here?

The car was built buy Cris Lee, who lives in B.C. Canada, and who was first made aware of the kit around 2000 through some connections at Momentum Motorsport. It was located just across the border in Oregon State, where a well connected shop owner had purchased the kit, complete with hood, dash, fenders, bumpers, rear quarter panels and rear spoiler for a rather pricey 15,000 euros direct from SMS. In today's exchange rate that's over $20,000. not cheap. Cris got the entire set up for "next to nothing" as he put it, but proceeded to spend nearly as much in body work to install it onto his Jazz Blue 1997 Driver's Edition GTI VR6.

Having inspected this body work first hand, I can tell you that it is TOP NOTCH. As solid, actually more solid, than any Mk3 you'll ever see. I almost destroyed this car one time. Did I not mention that? I was in the NGP Rallye Golf VR6 Turbo which had, to say the least, a twitchy clutch, and I was attempting to move from a rather tight parking spot on a slight incline. The A59 was in front, sideways, and I stalled, just barely managing to grab the brakes about 6" from absolute destruction. This was also before a show, so it would have been doubly bad. But it didn't happen, so back to the story.

Notice how tiny a normal set of wheels look with the A59 body kit. Large rollers only.

The hood, rear spoiler and dash were all sold before Cris came into the picture, and are rumored to still be living inside the USA somewhere. So if you ever happen to find someone selling a complete carbon fiber dash for a Mk3, you may have stumbled upon a serious piece of VW Motorsport history. Anyways, this was in fact the last kit from the program, and it is unknown if there are any other spares, but it's pretty unlikely. The reason the install was so involved was because this was 100% just panels. No mounting points, no anything. It was as Cris said, just the molded panels that someone had to play around with.

So after a short time as a demo car for FK Automotive, Cris decided he wasn't doing enough with the A59 and let it go. Once it was at NGP Racing it was changed just a bit, with a custom turbo kit installed making around 375hp, some Kinesis wheels, different seats, but visually it remained exactly as it was when Cris first built the car.

Dave sold the A59 to a local customer in late 2005 / early 2006, and that owner just recently re-sold the car once again. Who owns it? Not sure. Will it ever see the light of day again? Let's hope so. End up crashed? Well let's hope not, but another one of a kind (the infamous Zonker, which I will also write about fairly soon) has been rolling around for a number of years, and well, it's been doing okay.

Check out the carbon fiber weave, visible through the paint. Is this the last A59 kit? Probably, and although the molds still exist, the cost to try and get SMS to create another set would likely be astronomical. I'm not sure anyone in their right mind would spend $30,000 for an incomplete body kit.

And that's that. Or is it? The cool thing about the A59 is that it has managed to live what seems like nine lives, considering that it was never even a production vehicle. The next and final installment involves the power plant from the dear A59, which managed far more success than VW has ever managed at a high level of motorsport. Where? France. If you don't know then I'll tell you in a couple weeks. Stand by!

_WRS

Classic Mk1 for sale: Kermit the Rabbit

Kermit the Rabbit. This particular car is in my own personal top five three VW's of all time, without a doubt. It was first built and paraded around the magazine circuit back in the early 90's, appearing in European Car in the October 1993 issue. Looking back on it, it was really quite a combination of 80's styling with a 90's sensibility. It has the 80's inspired ABD Racing kit, the 80's ATS wheels, but a more 90's sort of color palette and feel. Sorta smoothed out, yet sorta not. I love it.

At the moment this car is listed as being for sale on VW Vortex. The owner says the car has been in storage since 2001, and judging by the time capsule appearance there is little reason to doubt that. The asking price is a modest, in my opinion, $4000. As the owner says, he's offering it for such a relatively low price because the engine hasn't been turned over even once in that 8 year period. It should be ok, but even if it isn't it wouldn't be a pricey one to fix. 8v CIS simplicty at its best. (check out the fully adjustable camber plates...those will eventually be residing in the Scirocco)


This car, by the way, is Signal Green. I think it may have tipped my hand in that direction with regards to Scirocco Madness. It's clearly a raging dead heat on the old poll up there (8 votes! yeah!) but for me it's down to Mexico Blue (the old ball and chain's favorite...just kidding Melody!) and Signal Green (my favorite). So consider this Rabbit a blue print of sorts for the direction we plan to go in. I think there are worse sources of inspiration. Check out more pics on the Wolfsburg RS Flickr page, as usual.

_WRS

Video Post: Golf 3 Kit car at

Slow week overall. Sorry about that. I'm working on other more interesting stories, but nothing really worth posting up as of yet. In the meantime enjoy this fairly decent in-car video from a Golf 3 kit car at the Nürburgring Nordschleife. It's from Team Benninghofen Motorsport, who also happen to have some pretty cool Mk2 videos from the Northloop as well. I'll post them up later, or of course you can check their youtube channel. I've also posted a dyno clip of the same Golf 3...sounds sounds stout!

_WRS

Vintage Picture Post - Bug Out 1997 + Scirocco Madness

Here are a few pics of my old friend Ryan's 1984 Jetta GLI. This was Bug Out 1997, the car was very clean, very straight, very strong, and was a mere $700 at the time. Jamex suspension, Borbet Type C copies, old school Zender spoiler. A pretty common selection of parts at the time. This particular car met its fate, like so many others, on the bottom half of Interstate I83 in downtown Baltimore. The car was toast, but it lived on, donating the head, transmission and rear brakes to my old Mk1 GTI project. It was a good car, and Ryan was a good friend...

Speaking of wrecks, Scirocco Madness had a slight setback when a crew came in to clean and prep the back lot of NGP for paving and general upkeep. As Jason put it, "a bunch of rednecks with big machines" did the moving, and it looks like we escaped mostly unscathed, but it's hard to say.


As of now it's sitting on the front valance, which sucks if it's damaged, as I was figuring on not running a front spoiler, but if it's damaged I'll just have to use the 16v kit which is in the car, or figure something else out. I'd rather not but sometimes you just do what you have to. I'm just hoping they set it down gently. I'm not putting money on that though.


The only for sure casualty of the move was the front bumper...no big deal there. They were going to be swapped out for something else anyway so that just speeds up the process. In the background you can just make out the Mk1 GTI that will most likely be donating its transmission, various mounts, hardware and whatever else we may need that I'm not going to want to buy. Which reminds me, I need to lock that down.

Anyway, next time I should have some more info on the drivetrain. I was planning on waiting on that for a good long while, but I realized an engine that I had built a few years ago was poking around and looking for a home, and while I'm not going to use the whole thing, I will use at least the head. Good times! Things are coming together much more quickly than I would have thought. Not that any work has been done yet, but at least it's sorta progressing.

_WRS

The other Wolfsburg RS Project: Blaksquirrel's Mk5 GTI

I'm still waiting on my A59 info, so I figured I would officially introduce Blaksquirrel's Mk5 GTI 2.0t daily driver as a WRS project. Josh has owned this particular Candy White GTI since it was new in 2006, and has had a bunch of stuff done over the years, including Vogtland coilovers, APR ECU upgrade, full 3" turbo back exhaust, Forge Motorsport Twintercooler, Diverter, Carbonio intake, all that good stuff.

The biggest visual change to the car, and the one we'll be focusing on here, was the addition of a set of Hartmann Lamborghini Gallardo replica wheels (Model G5) in 19x8", et42. The more aggressive offset (for a Mk5 anyways) of this early set never made it into production, so if you want this same stance, you'll need to run some 5mm spacers on the 47mm offset they offer. Just be prepared to do some fender clearancing to accommodate the tires. The G5's are relatively light for being big 19x8" rollers by the way, and have held up really well to the abuse.

So the 215/35 R19 Dunlops that J had been running ended up bubbled and in poor shape thanks to the combination of having practically no side wall, and running on typically poor New York / New Jersey highway surfaces. Josh ran the wheels in silver for a while, and although they looked good, it just didn't have enough "pop."

With the tires in need of replacement anyway, we decided to head down to Lufteknic and take the time to catch up with Robert and get the wheels freshened up with a coat of gloss black paint and some 225/35 Dunlop Direzza Sport Max tires. Once the tires were off Josh got to washing, washing, and then washing again, before scuffing the surface for the spray.

No turning back now!


The finished product, up close. This fitment is without any spacers or anything, fills the arches perfectly!


I think it made a huge difference in the looks of the car. The slightly larger tires fill up the fenders more completely, and the black wheels really tie together the black trim around the bottom of the car and the "shield" grill, whereas before it seemed out of place. They have the added benefit of making the car look about 100 times more aggressive and moody.

Special thanks to Robert and the crew at Lufteknic for the additional help and support, now and in years past. Maybe if Robert finds the time in between GT3RS engine rebuilds and his top secret panel van project, he can get his Mk2 Jetta finished up and we can make room for it here on the site. (Just kidding Robert, I know you've got bigger fish to fry!)

_WRS

Scirocco Madness: Off my Sciroccer

I'm still waiting on some inside info to come back about the A59 so I can continue on that story line, so in the mean time I've been twiddling my thumbs a bit and thinking about this Scirocco plan. It has actually managed to convince not only Blaksquirrel that it might be a cool idea, but even Robert down at Lufteknic is on board now. My lovely Fiancé is not yet a believer in this, but she isn't necessarily against it either, so that's almost a "yes, it's okay." Besides, she likes Sciroccos so I can easily win her over.

One of the big questions about this is color. What color to do? Josh (Blaksquirrel) is in the camp of leaving it black, and even Jason said he'd leave the doors, hood and hatch as they are, meaning it wouldn't have to have paint. The thing is, I'm not really all that into having another black car. The last few cars I've owned have all been black, silver, or white, so I'm thinking if this is a weekend runner, stripped out racer type of deal, why not make it a bit more eye catching? So I'm looking to that era of garish colors and garish styles: 1970's. Or the aughts. Pretty much the same thing.

I've never tried to hide the fact I'm a big Porsche fan, and if I wasn't not rich, i.e. I could afford a Porsche, I'd own one tomorrow. Win the lottery? I'm buying at least 3 of them. (One 997 GT3 RS, one 993 Turbo, one 964 RS America) So I can't afford a real Porsche, but I CAN afford the paint, or at least the colors. So that's where I'm looking for eyeball inspiration. I know these themes are all pretty popular these days since the 997 RS cars were so popular, and I've seen this theme on everything from Ibiza's and Golf's to anything else you can think of. That doesn't mean it doesn't still have some life left in it. So what should I do? I'm personally leaning towards Signal Green with black, but my mind is far from made up. So what do you think it should be? Vote via the first ever WRS poll! (psst, it's on the upper right hand side...)

_WRS

Orange w/ Black

Signal Green w/ Black

Mexico Blue w/ Black
Black w/ Orange
Mint Green w/ Black

or what the heck: White w/ Blue