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By
Bertel Schmitt on February 26, 2013
When I helped Volkswagen launch its Golf GTI in 1976, Volkswagen wanted to make only 5,000. They wanted to make even less, actually, but 5,000 were needed for homologation as a racer. Volkswagen was convinced that no mentally stable person would be nuts enough to buy a little car like that with a 110 hp engine. Boy were they ever wrong. It took well into the 80’s for the Golf GTI to come to America. When I said “Americans love muscle cars,” the answer was: “Haven’t you heard? 55 miles an hour.” Wrong again. Today, Volkswagen shows the seventh generation of the archetypical hot hatch. at the Geneva International Motor Show.
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By
Bertel Schmitt on May 31, 2011
How about a Volkswagen Golf with the insane, mindbending power of 235 horses under the hood? Want one? Then better stop reading. Book a flight to Klagenfurt (that’s KLU in airport-speak, your travel agent probably has never heard of it) and go like right now. There will probably be a stopover in Vienna. Then head to Reifnitz, Wörthersee and just follow the noise. From tomorrow, June 1 through June 4th, the bucolic town in Austria will host the world’s biggest Golf GTI Meet.
There will be two anniversaries to be celebrated. The Golf GTI Meet turns 30. And the Golf GTI has just turned 35. To celebrate the double anniversary, Volkswagen lays on the Golf GTI Edition 35, at 235 hp “the most powerful GTI ever,” says Volkswagen. (Read More…)
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