Save the 8v - Slammed Jetta Edition

Even with preparation for H20 International totally kicking my ass at the moment, I had to snap a pic of this Jetta today. Very scene, so to speak, but looked great and it's an 8v, so I have to show it some love. At this point I'd say the 8v Mk4 cars are holding up better than their higher horsepower counterparts, but then simplicity is always best.

I hope to have more as the H20i weekend progresses, but it's hard to find the time in between the hours on the job. Rest assured with the new condo on 60th Street in Ocean City proper we'll have some much better shots from the strip than last year. Watch this space....

_WRS

Spotted in NYC: Mk4 Jetta

Parked just one block away from my apartment, this moody Mk4 Jetta was holding court over the local park. After taking the pic a group of nearby tween girls asked (somewhat aggressively) why I was taking their picture. I assured them I was not, I was taking a picture of the car. They looked at me as if I was crazier than if I had just said I was taking a picture of them.

More often than not, people who live in NYC just don't understand people who are into cars. That's why when people ask me what I do, I say 'computer stuff,' and leave it at that...

_WRS

VW Roots (Baltimore's Finest Jetta Club)

Every once in a while it's good to look back on where you came from, and where you managed to pick up this addiction. I've been into cars my whole life, my favorite Matchbox car was a blue Sachs sponsored Porsche 935, so the post and pic series which is forthcoming isn't necessarily exactly where it all started for me, but it's the first time Josh and I would hang out with other people strictly because they shared a similar passion. That group was Baltimore's Finest Jetta Club. Thanks to Josh's camera always being in hand, he was there to take these pictures.



Back in the day, a certain car or model would tend to get really popular in Baltimore, and for a really long time it was all about the Mk2 Jetta. Back then half the cars weren't really sporting anything more than some chrome Hammers and maybe some kind of body kit or some lowering springs, but it was the car to have, no doubt. The 'it' car went onto the 300Z soon after, and the Acura Legend soon after that, but there were those who stuck with the Volkswagens, and those guys were the Jetta Club.



I'll need to check with Josh if he has any other pics, but this series is of the club president, Billy, and his newly acquired Corrado G60. Keep in mind this car was only 3 years old at most when these pictures were shot...and Billy's black 92 GL with the Momo Quasars and modified Maxima body kit was only a year old. Billy was quite the VW head...he lived and breathed it hardcore, and he had an 87 GTI 16v as a more in depth project as well.



The closest thing to this grip of cars these days would be an R32 parked next to a Mk5 Jetta, with a Mk4 20th Anniversary out back.



This 16v was running a full body kit from Autotech (I think?) and was resprayed in a slightly more flashy version of the OEM maroon paint. There wasn't any internet to jump on, no way to know what the other guys were doing except for what you saw in European Car, or what you saw at Bug Out. There was no Waterfest, no H20, no Dubs anywhere at all. Just your catalogs from Neuspeed, Autotech and Techtonics. There were other shops, like JT Motorsport and Rapid Parts, but they didn't have those same glossy mags, or the cache of the 'Big Three.'



Altogether there were probbaly 10-12 hardcore members of Baltimore's Finest Jetta Club, and maybe another 5-6 that would show up on the odd occasion. Most of these guys were getting out of the whole car phase, with families and real life to deal with, so after that first 6-8 months of hanging out at the Polytechnic parking lot on Sunday afternoons, we lost touch with Billy and the rest of the guys. From there we started hanging out with the younger guys at Loch Raven Reservoir, but that's a story for another time.



Who knows, maybe there's a mint G60 Corrado stuffed into some garage in East Baltimore, parked next to a dusty old 16v project that never quite got finished all those years ago. Probably not, but it wouldn't surprise me...just remember that it's guys like this that helped keep the VW scene alive back in the dark ages of Watercooled tuning. Sure the cars look dated and a little tame by today's standards (however the wheels are all hot!), but they were the way things were back then.

_WRS

New Jetta unveiled in Times Square (NYC)

And Katy Perry stands on it. If you plan on buying one of these new bigger / cheaper / more 'merican Jettas, and ever anticipate being near or possibly even somewhat close to Katy Perry, be prepared for this to happen. And as petite as she is, hood dents are never any fun, no matter who caused them.

_WRS

Nate's Dusty Mauve Jetta

Nate's car has been around for a few years now, so it may seem a bit familiar to some of you, but that doesn't mean it's not worth seeing again. After all it's been featured in Eurotuner and Performance VW, plus Nate is a pretty dedicated guy when it comes to the Ocean City shows in the spring and fall. He stopped by the shop today to do a little fender clearancing in anticipation of setting up the car a little lower than it was previously.



I can recall when this car was bone stock and in need of some love, as it sat languishing in the back lot for a while. I can't recall why, but eventually Nate decided to show the car the love it deserves. This fairly rare Dusty Mauve GLX has been in his family since new, and is still on the original paint. It's not perfect, but it's pretty damn close, especially for a 15 year old car.



Oh yeah, these rims? Nate custom made the centers. Not had them made, not bought them, but CAD designed and set up the CNC machine to create them from a solid chunk of aluminum. Pretty unheard of as far as I know...and they look good too. The inner and outer barrels were taken from his old Gotti wheels, which were 15x10" all around.







The other cool thing about Nate's Jetta, counting out the powdercoated everything and insane attention to detail, is the remote mounted turbo system. I didn't have a ton of room because of the way the alignment rack lift is postioned, but this pic is right at the back axle, and shows the turbo and main details.



If you want to know more about the wheels, check out the Build thread on Vortex.

_WRS

From the archives... Abt Sportsline Cup 2.0 Jetta

Despite my best efforts, I finally ran out of hard drive space on my trusty Macbook. I fought it for a while, but even after deleting a bunch of unneeded, space-hogging videos and various junk, it had to be taken care of. So I made the purchase a few weeks ago, but oddly enough I'm not the most computer savvy person in the world when it comes to those of the desktop variety. I can solder a chip or repair a connection on a Bosch ECU with the best of them, but crack open a laptop and I'm all question marks.

Josh (blacksquirrel) is the resident computer pro, so I lured him over to Chateau de Rennsport (French / German...sure, why not!) with the promise of some free tacos from De Mole. My Lacie external backup drive had decided to pack it in, awesome, so Josh had to bring his over for the cloning process, which as you can imagine went for much longer than we expected. Pretty typical. At any rate, the plus side of this is that his drive was left overnight for me to complete the process, and lo and behold, it has a bunch of pictures on it that he's too lazy busy to send me for the blog.

This particular shot is a reject (slide film son!) from a Performance VW shoot, probably around 2000 or 2001. I don't recall the owner's name, but he was a really cool guy, who drove all the way from California for the honor of a feature! To Waterfest! Talk about commitment. The car had a full ABT Sportsline Cup widebody, which is in my opinion the best around for the Mk3, along with some other items, the specifics on which escape me. The raw carbon fiber hood perhaps takes away a little and dates the overall style, but there's no faulting the rest of the car. Nice and low without looking silly, OZ wheels, just a nice looking car. A true classic, and proof that VW's have been doing the whole 'stance' thing while the import guys were still rocking et45 Konigs on their Wings West Civics.

For the record, I like imports, so no hate mail please.

On a somewhat related tangent, I was reading Hot Rod today, (eye opening magazine by the way, really well written) and they used the word 'Stance' in a feature story. Does that constitute shark-jumping? Discuss....

Full Sized Pic

_WRS

Found on Flickr - Mk1 Jetta

I decided to start a new post theme here, which I have dubbed (ahem, no pun intended) 'found on Flickr.' There aren't many details on this Mk1 Jetta, not even any other shots on the photostream, but it has just about the best looking set of BBS wheels I have ever seen on a VW. Not that you can really go wrong with any BBS wheels, but these are rare, pure period correct, motorsport-inspired awesome-ness. Not too much poke, not too low, not too wide, not too much lip.

_WRS

Spotted in NYC: Mk4 Jetta

As I was strolling home to the humble abode that serves as the Wolfsburg RS headquarters I spotted this fine specimen, and was inclined to take a pic. This is pretty representative of a proper street-going VW here in the big city.

There are a surprisingly large number of modified VW's here, and very few people make consessions for the sometimes war-like condition of the roads by keeping their cars modest. This Jetta isn't slammed, but it's got a nice balanced look, and stands out like a priest at a porn convention compare to the average run-of-the-mill cars it was sitting between.

I love the art of the daily driver, because for me that's what it's all about. Actually driving and enjoying your car, because it does little good sitting in a garage or under a cover for its whole life. I was never very good at keeping cars show clean, and I drive my cars too much to worry about stone chips and the like...it's always good to see another like-minded person out there.

_WRS

Always and forever...VW my friends

It's often suggested that VWs are merely stepping stones to bigger and better things. The basic logic is that a VW owner in their 20s will soon be an Audi or BMW owner in their 30s, and probably a Porsche owner once the big four-oh mid-life crisis hits, and then Mercedes from there until death. It's kind of an insulting assumption in my opinion, after all who are "they" to judge me for driving a VW my entire life, and although I aspire to ownership of a Porsche 911 or perhaps an E30 M3, it has to do with the driving experience, not the status. After all an E30 M3 is still 3-8 years older than my humble daily driver.

I suppose some people succumb to the pressure to do what is expected of them...you get older, you buy a bigger / nicer car to haul around the kids and impress the neighbors out there in the suburbs, that sort of thing. I would like to consider myself successful (thus far) at not falling in line like the rest, which I guess is why I drive slammed Mk3 in NYC on a regular basis. Would I drive a slammed M3? Sure, but I'd still own that VW. Always have an always will.

One of my recurring fantasies involves me becoming rich and / or famous enough for an episode of cribs. People will think I'm insane. Rather than lame SUVs with chrome wheels and stupid, boring Bentleys, I would have row after row of humble, but highly modified Volkswagens.

"Yes that's my 1989 Rallye Golf. One of 5000 made you know. I've converted that one with a 16v head, much like the G60 16v as used in the Golf Limited...which is the car parked right here. One of 70 made, this one is 100% original, but I still drive it at least once a week."

"That red Rabbit GTI in the back is the first ever car I ever owned. Yes, I tracked it down and bought it from the current owner and restored it to the original condition, to the same specification it was just before I sold it in 2003 like a dumb-ass. Over here is my Berg Cup racer...."

And so on. I guess that means I'm a pretty terminal die-hard VW case. I know others like me, but being dedicated and not having say, the lure of a 911 to work on instead of a VW is partially situational, as in not being in the situation of being forced to choose between a VW and something else. Not many people have their 911 sitting next to their Mk2 thinking "forget that exotic sports car with all the racing heritage...let's wrench on the early 90's economy car instead."

This is exactly what my buddy Robert does however. He owns and runs a fairly well regarded Porsche shop. He has driven and worked on pretty much every kind of exotic and desirable 911 ever built. Modified turbo 993s, 996s, GT3s, 930s, old 70's Carreras, not to mention plenty of GT3R race cars. This guy has a plethora of stuff that dreams are made of sitting around, yet he is consistently finding some way to work on his Mk2 Jetta.

Case in point: He swapped an ABA block into his old daily driver a year or so ago, and ended up having the thing stuffed in a parking lot thanks to some random dude chatting away on a cell phone rather than paying attention to things like speed, steering and brakes. A car was bought to replace it. Another red 1992 Jetta. A shell was (eventually) found for the completely rebuilt ABA 8v engine...yet another red 1992 Jetta, as seen in the background here.

Here is Jason and Robert after a minor lack-of-fuel problem on the way back home...pesky gas tanks never seem to fill themselves up!

Talk about a sickness! Naturally swaps were made, parts were stored or sold off, and the old shell was deposited at the scrap yard for a cool $50. So now Robert is down to just two Mk2 Jettas in Tornado Red, rather than three, and he still has all those 911s waiting their turn as well.

People like Robert and his buddy Jason, who often helps with the junk-yard searches and multi-state reconnaissance missions for parts and donor cars, make me happy. I know I'm not alone in this world of being a die hard VW head. I don't really like Audis that much, so sue me. I know they're basically the same as their similarly sized and shaped Volkswagens, but they just don't do anything for me at the end of the day. Anyways, I guess what I'm trying to say is that it makes me happy that there are others like me. People who realize that life is not always about aspiring to the bigger or better thing, it's valuing what you have and what you love, and if you love old Mk2 Jettas, well, the 911 can wait.

More to come from Project Jetta Beater by the way....Robert has some wheels in storage and more work ahead before she's 100% back on track, and when she is, I'll have more on perhaps the only Mk2 Jetta 8v that is loved more than a 911. Seriously.

_WRS