There are certain areas around the world where the Volkswagen Golf is one of the most popular vehicles on the road. If you happen to be visiting Eastern Europe, you might be surprised at how many Golfs are in traffic, including the older Mk1, Mk2, and Mk3 generations. This isn’t too surprising given the Golf’s simplicity and reliability. In other regions, some people tune the car to more than 500 horsepower (368 kilowatts).
You’ve probably seen a heavily modified Golf Mk2 before, but it’s probably the most engineered out there. There’s more to that than a turbocharged engine under the hood as the vehicle has undergone a long process of perfecting the chassis, steering and brakes, in addition to the engine. In fact, it took its owners more than 18 years to reach its current state. And this is certainly not the final form.
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Of course, the exterior doesn’t look too spectacular. To some extent, it’s like most other street hot hatches with a larger spoiler, diffuser and air opening. However, each component has an aerodynamic function that makes the car very stable at high speeds. It’s so stable that it glides evenly around the Nurburgring and feels almost like a real race car. The video at the top of this page shows the light blue Golf lapping against the famous track – and it’s quite an eerie and impressive sight at the same time.
Not everyone can afford to spend a large part of their life tuning hot hatches. For those who don’t have the time and resources to do so, we are happy to report that you can actually drive this particular car on Assetto Corsa. There are very detailed and realistic models (see gallery above) from this car available for download showcases the Audi S1’s sound as the next best thing to actual engine sound. The best part is that it is constantly being updated and modified to reflect improvements from real-life counterparts.
