What started your love affair with the mk1

[Oneofthegreats]

I know we have "The Car or Thing that gets you Inspired Thread" & also the "Rat & Retro Style Mk1's..." thread as well.

But what really got you interested in Mk1's & what was the car that changed the way you thought about not only cars, but the "Mk1" in general

My Mk1 that I'd say changed the way for me was not only driving around on my L's for a couple of years, but this car started it all for me long before I was driving at all!



It may not look much, but this Mk1 was so far ahead of its time, its almost stupid to think this was going on way back when.

Starting off with a new Scirocco 16V donor car & also a crashed Campaign as a donor car, add in a Nitrous sucking 16V producing 295hp!

It was also the very first Golf have a Quaife ATB in the world too! Hows that for history!!!

This was built in 1988 by the way.









2nd would have to have been this car

Carb'd 16v with a best time of 13.8.

A very clean & sedate styling that was ahead of its time I reckon & paved the way for many other people to follow suit around the same time.
















There have been plenty, plenty more incl. Mark Elliotts twin weber'd, turbo'd & NOS 16V fitted to a very sedate, stock looking red Mk1.

Unable to locate any old pics of that car though sorry,

[Preen59]

For me, it was relatively simple.

My mum had a 1968 beetle, regatta blue with Fuchs wheels and a 1776 on Kadrons, Just like my old man's KG many of you have seen..

I wanted the Beetle, but was talked out of it by my old man.. Beetle's were starting to get a bit old and parts were getting scarce etc etc.. So what was the next best thing in my books?

I had to have a Mk1 Golf, just like the blue one my parents bought from the wreckers some years previous, fixed up and ended up selling. (Mum almost kept it and sold the Beetle..)

So, when i got my P's i started looking around to see what was available. As it turned out, a guy that was working at my work had THE blue Mk1 golf that my parents had fixed up and sold to him some years prior.

Long story short, i bought it and still own it. I've loved every second of driving it and every second of driving every Mk1 since.

[static1800]

My Parents have always been into VW's they have had heaps and heaps of various aircooled cars since they were on their P's! so I was destined to have something from the Volkswagen stable.

Anyway, I had my L's, was working, had some cash and was looking for a car, friend of my folks has a VW workshop and happened to have a 3dr swallowtail for sale, I took it for a drive and bought it



Been hooked on them ever since!

[WABIT]

i just wanted to be "scene"

[GRN_VAGN]

I needed a car, mate wanted to sell one... win win

[dubai gti]

Quite simple really...my olds bought a new, Martini Olive, Bay-window, Microbus (8-seater) in late 1976...Sandersons in Camberwell shafted them by saying it would be available in 2 weeks (so mum's Mazda 1500 was sold. KKK-222, are you still out there?) 10 weeks later dad pulled some strings & our 'Bus had been sitting in a yard in Sydney..one of the last Oz-assembled...they were trying to get him to buy a fully-imported bus...at a premium $$$$..I still remember the excitement of collecting that new car, with a couple of mates (all of us 9 y.old) also with us...

Thru' the above and the fact that Sandersons kept setting the valves @ 0.06", when even VW (and John Muir-How to Keep ur VW Alive) had stated they were wrong and should be a lil' looser @ 0.08"...we got the 'bug' and Dad started fixing them himself.....then came:

-From 1977...brother's '63 Type 3 Notch, '71 Type 3 Fastback(FI), '64 Bug, 2005 Passat, and 2007 Jetta
-From 1980...Sister's '70 Type Fastback (twin-carb) and now her 2006 Mk5 Sportline Golf (which used to belong to brother no.2 from new)

& Me (From 1986)started with:
Bugs....'66 x 2, 71 x 1, 72 x 1 (also a '62 complete spares car...)
Golfs ...'00 2-door GTI and the current '85 Cabby

I almost bought a mates 1976 2-door Golf (with full-length Webasto sunroof) back in 1994.

Through my fasination with the Bug and it's Italian-designed replacement GOLF, I had videos and even a visit to the VW factory and Museum in Wolfsburg in 1991 (I know someone who works there !!)

What more can I say (or ramble on about) ???

[revnit]

My golf affair started alittle later than most ive always been into hatch backs my first car i decided to play with was a 93 swift gti when i was about 18 odd years old, respray, body kit engine work had it for a couple years then sold it to build another swift gti but turbo this time was a big eye opener got stuffed around with the whole built lost alot of money then i met a guy that was a mechanic that had a mk1 golf he helped me out with my swift project ended up selling it half complete in the end, then i brought my first mk1 was a yellow 2 door full of rust at the time i was new to the vw scene did alittle bit to it before finding out it was a total wreck so i scrapped that, then got into the lancer evo scene just for a change of pace etc..etc.., couple years later i saw this for sale on this forum........



It like the shannons add " it was love mate" this was the first mk1 that really got my pulse racing it was something a jap crap man had never seen before! , that picture was taken a few months after i brought it has changed a fair bit since then mostly under the hood, and some cosmetic changes, but at the moment its a bare metal rolling shell the obsession has got out of control

[alex g]

yer as the story seems to go always had vw around be it the convertable Karman or the orange bugs or combis,have pics of me as a toddler in front of the Karman, with you younger brother coming along and third child for mum n dad the Karman wasnt big enough(ohh to still have that car today) so a new mexican beige gld mk1 golf was purchased from lennock motors, now this was the rock it was the family chariot for the next ten years?? 3 boys in the back doing numerous trips up and down the coast and canberra.As we got older (say 13 ish) , twas time for a new car i so clearly remember seeing a new mk2 gti, south african import, up at bondi junction and dad had to have it (which i rebought some years later to turn into my first full blown expereince with modifications), we then had a real golf and i learnt about the performance side of vw not just the practicality and reliability. next up was a mk3 classic , at which time we had 3 golf in the house, i learnt to drive in the mk2 and 1 and took ownership of the gld for a few years. audi golf and so on are par for the cause now, my brother has a mk5 mum an a3 an so on.At one stage we had every mk (bar the mk3) in ownership in the family(plus a few audis)

in regards to modifications and styling the mk2 was really my first love but, i think once you look at golfs in particular its so easy to see traits and style trends throughout the mk's so the love is for all golfs in the end

[h100vw]

golfworx, that green MK1 PCA676Y is still on the street and track. My mate Chris Bennett owns it. I have been in it a fair number of times, it still had the 16V in then.

Chris went to America for 4 years and it sat in his dads garage only coming out for track days when he came home on holiday. Not long after he got back permanently, the engine threw a major 7. Due to the amount of work that had gone into it, he couldn't replicate it due to teh expense.
So he bought a crashed mk4 GTI and fitted the turbo lumo in the front.

It was a flying machine with the 2.1 16v the turbo looks to be better still.

One track day with the 16V we were at Elvington, where Richard Hammond had that big crash, running rings around some 911s.

Oulton Park 27 01 10 'Catch the Evo' on Vimeo Hopefull this link works for him chasing an EVO at Oulton Park, used to be my local track.

Cheers

Gavin

[WABIT]

such a classic look!

dom

[sparkie]

16 years old in France on a french exchange, the father in the family drove me back from town in a Mk1 GLS Cabriolet using the back roads, his daughter in the back with no seatbelt on, just holding the grabs handles to stay upright. Never forgotten it, still looking for a Mk1 Cabriolet! Got the Mk3 cos it was a diesel, not because it was a Golf, same with the Mk1 diesel! Bit of a diesel nut!

[GeorgeMK1]

Some pretty interesting stories here.

Mine began when i was about 8. My old man had a mk1 pick up. All i can remember was that it had alot of rust problems in the back of it. So it was sold. Growing up in South Africa was MK1 capital. Everyday i would see young guys driving these great golfs and thinking to myself one day i would have one. The amount of work that goes into mk1's over there is amasing. I have seen all types of mk1's, whether they are PACKED with subs and blowing you away, or having twin engines in and doing 10 seconds. I have seen mk1's with nitrous, turbos, you name it S.A has it. My brothers 81 2 door was the biggest part of it. Getting picked up from school in his car, and everyone looking at his bright green lime colour with the subs blarring, was high-light of me wanting a mk1.

Years later, finally got one, and not for one second have regretted all the money iv spent on it, to me every single $ was worth it.

[16v_kid]

Mine began 7-8 years ago..

Dad built a mk1 16v many years ago when I was just a little boy but I still remember how that thing went and I just felt in love with them from then on.
But dads been playing around with then from the 80s onwards so I kind of carried the disease on .

[WABIT]

mine started before 1996, dad started work at a vw workshop, then in 96 my parents bought an ex californian universal pictures recaro edition mk1 cabby, had the usual massive alloy bumpers, side reflectors pure american style for my mum, then on her birthday, a taxi ran a red light and smashed it in the pass side front at full speed! it got repaired but stayed un assembled for 5-6 years, then dad re built it will all euro bumpers shaved side reflectors and built the motor up, then it sat in storage for a while because they bought a VR6 which mum still has today, when i was 13, my dads boss asked me if i wanted a project car, and was given a 65 notchback delux to restore, that was my first car, then i turned 16 and had a choice to buy between my dads highly modified r32 skyline or the restored mk1 cabby..... i think the rest is history...

dom

[Jarred]

I got one to pick up chicks.

nah. I've always liked old cars (looks, simplicity, character) I kinda fell into getting one. Wasn't till I found out more about the history of the GTI & began working on my own (and fanging it) that I really started to love what this little old car could do.

been down hill ever since!