Skip to main content

Find of the Day: 1978 Volkswagen GTI

The debate between buying a vehicle built to someone else’s dream spec or simply building it yourself is one that’s caused its fair share of discussion within our forums.  Today’s Find of the Day just might re-ignite such debate, as it’s been modified to a very high level with an extremely clear focus- performance.

buyitbuilt-fotdmk1-2

This GTI’s most prominent modifications reside underhood, so we might as well start there.  The 1.8 liter four has been heavily breathed on, featuring high compression pistons, a G grind Volkswagen Motorsport camshaft, port and polished cylinder head, larger throttle body and a host of other tweaks.  To make the most of this newfound power, the close-ratio 5 speed has been fitted with a 3.65 final drive and a quaff differential was installed.  The brakes and suspension have also been upgraded, and Recaro front seats ensure that the driver and copilot stay planted and comfortable.  Moving to the exterior, a quad-round grille, small bumpers and flares work to make the car closely resemble its European market equivalent.

buyitbuilt-fotdmk1-3

As with any car that is purchased post-modification, there are a few things that we’d change.  First, we noticed that this GTI does not have a tachometer, which is certainly something we’d change.  Also, the car does have a few dings and some surface rust in the driver’s side rain gutters, which would need to be addressed.  Normally these wouldn’t really be issues, but at an asking price of $22,500, it’s certainly something worth mentioning.

Additional images and information can be found right here.

The post Find of the Day: 1978 Volkswagen GTI appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex http://ift.tt/1AQ0P3W
via IFTTT

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Project SportWagen: Going Stage 2 with APR

    When we last left you, the humble little SportWagen was fresh from the development process with our friends at AWE Tuning, sporting a new downpipe, exhaust and intake, allowing things to breathe a bit easier.  The car sounded great, but there was no getting around the fact that our wagon was still quite, well, slow.   While we realize that nothing we do to the Golf SportWagen at this point will make it a race car, we still felt compelled to do something .  To put it bluntly, we had a fever, and the only cure was more power. Flash forward a few hours, and we found ourselves at Waterfest, staring down APR’s palatial spread and the numerous tuned vehicles surrounding it.  Earlier in the year, APR had hinted to us that their 1.8 TSI files would be quite impressive, and based on what they were able to do with the 2.0 TSI found in the new GTI and our time in their Golf R, we knew it’d be worth the wait.  So with this in mind, we lined our G...

Volkswagen Group Records Best Ever First-Half-of-Year Sales

With 5.5 million vehicles in customer hands after the first six months of 2018, the Volkswagen Group is seeing the best performance of its history. Group deliveries increased significantly in all core regions,” said Fred Kappler, head of sales for the Group. “Our core brands recorded strong growth in the first half year.” For the year-to-date, all of Volkswagen’s brands had sales bumps. MAN, SEAT, and Skoda led the sales charge with performances 24%, 17% and 11% better than the previous year. The big sellers, too, had strong sales periods, with Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Audi, and Volkswagen sales rising 3.5%, 4.5% and 6.3% respectively. That last figure is particularly good new for the board, since Volkswagen alone sold more than 3 million vehicles in the first half of 2018. As Kappler stated, the numbers are equally good when you break sales down by region. Brazil and Russia were the most improved markets (22% and 20%, respectively), while strong sales in Europe and China (u...

Project Golf SportWagen- Intro

I’ve never really been one for SUVs and crossovers.  The current offerings aren’t the body-on-frame, go-anywhere specialty tools I remember from my youth, and what they lack in capability, they also lack in on-road performance. The current crop isn’t terribly good at handling or being efficient, which in my opinion are major components of our ideal driving experience.  So when it comes to space or utility, I usually look for something of the wagon variety- and it seems that I’m not alone. We hit quite a few shows around the east coast each summer, and we see modified Jetta SportWagens at nearly every event. Even amongst common consumers, these cars are highly sought-after. They don’t depreciate much, making even early Mk 5 2.5 versions expensive in comparison to other Jettas or Golfs of the same vintage. This year, Volkswagen launched their latest SportWagen, which is now billed as a Golf.  In many ways, this latest SportWagen is the best yet and it has certai...