Used Car of the Day: 1986 Volkswagen GTI

by Tim Healey

Published: May 5th, 2025

Just a few days after I review a 41-year-old car that belongs to Volkswagen, I stumble across this 1986 Volkswagen GTI in our forums.

I didn't plan to be this VW-heavy, it just happened.

The seller says it's a show car that's 100 percent OEM stock. All original everything. Maintained "meticulously".

The owner has all the records dating back to 1986, as well.

There are 153K miles on it.

You can find this one in Texas for $15,000. Click here to see more.

[Image: Seller]

Become a TTAC insider. Get the latest news, features, TTAC takes, and everything else that gets to the truth about cars first by subscribing to our newsletter.

#UCOTD #UsedCaroftheDay #UsedCars #VolkswagenGti #1986VolkswagenGTI #VW #Volkswagen #GTI

Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

More by Tim Healey

Comments

Join the conversation

2 of 10 comments

MaintenanceCosts on May 05, 2025

An 8v Mk2 is not the car I would want to have in time-capsule condition. The driver-quality GLI 16V we had a couple weeks ago is a lot more appealing.

Like Reply
Bouzouki on Jul 02, 2025

By far, Tim Healey's best post.

Like Reply

Recent Comments

EBFlexing on ur mom Big whoops
MaintenanceCosts Another perfectly nice car wrecked by a bizarre fuel choice.
Corey Lewis A little bit skeptical of any video that claims swapping out interior colors is easy.
Master Baiter If you can budget $3K for annual repairs and maintenance, a vehicle like this is fine.
JMII Guess they still haven't learned how to lift these. On my C7 I bolted in RED lifting pucks just in case it ever needs to see a clueless GM dealer. As mentioned in the article even the C7 can only be lifted from certain points and looking underneath they are not immediately obvious. To date I've done all necessary maintenance myself due to my fear of what the grease monkey might do when faced with a vehicle that has a dry sump oil system.