Performance VWの November 2023 の目次

A few years back, if I’d have said this is the third pink car we’ve had on cover in five months, you’d probably have thought I was half cut. In fact, I’m struggling to believe it even now if I’m honest. That said, looking back over the past 12 months of magazines, it’s safe to say that bright colours are very much back in vogue after a decade or so of drab tones. Mark Brown’s lairy Lupo R32 (p8) reminds me of the early days of Euro-look with its bright pink paint, dinky wheels and lack of chrome. Hopefully this wash of bright coloured cars will continue. If Kim Sandells’ bright purple B7 RS4 (p26), is anything to go by, it doesn’t look set to stop any time soon. Benny…

VOLKSWORLD PLUS SHOW The Volksworld Show has been the UK’s premier air-cooled VW event for as long as we can remember. If you’re after the best of the best aircooled VWs, then you have always been guaranteed to see debuts of Europe’s finest Bugs, buses, Ghias and all manner of other air-cooled cars over the course of the weekend at Volksworld. Well, it just so happens that Volksworld magazine is published by Kelsey Media - the same company that prints Performance VW and, surprise, surprise, Kelsey also organise the Volksworld show. With more crossover than ever before between the air- and water-cooled VW scenes, they powers that be have decided that for 2024 Performance VW is going to also have a presence at the show, along with sister title, Classic…

In a small college town in Tennessee there is man, a man who had a plan. In Johnson City, we find Benny Broyles and his Mk2 Jetta Coupe. Benny is the General Manager and Fabricator at an automotive customisation shop called Sound Decision in town. As we all do, he has a hankering for VWs that began when he was young. Growing up in a family of hot-rodders and with Benny’s father having his hands into air-cooled restorations, he was hooked. His first car was a ’67 Type 1 Beetle. He’d lowered it, added chrome Porsche wheels and other goodies and had fun. An ’83 Mk1 GTI caught his eye. He’d done some performance modifications and a sound system, but he was definitely hooked, hence a VW head was born.…

If ever there was a story where parental influence plays a part in the outcome, Alex Boughen’s is it. Those pesky guardians have an awful lot to answer for here, not least for dragging 20-year-old Alex up proper and blessing him with an irreverent sense of style and a decidedly non-conformist attitude to automobiles. Mum and Dad, Beverley and Andrew were most definitely part of the late 80s VW uprising when you could buy a rusty old Beetle or a slightly knackered Split Screen / Bay Window for less than £500 and keep it on the road for not a lot more. Pastel paint, Empi 8s, DIY paintjobs, short shorts and just existing in a field seemed to be the order of the day back then. Ah, the good ol’…

PART FOUR Having decided the only way to truly make our Caddy Project stand out from the crowd - and all the other modified Caddys on the scene - was to pick a theme that tied in with Teng Tools’s branding. After all, Teng were sponsoring the project, so it was important to keep them on our side, I guess… After some brain storming, we came up with the idea of using the old Rennsport VW buses - used by Porsche during the 1960s - as inspiration. Firstly, these VW transporters were actual race support vehicles, so that would tie in with the brief we’d been originally set, and even more importantly, they were also finished in a bright shade of red, which matched the colour scheme of Teng Tool’s…

By his own admission, Mark Brown isn’t someone you’d naturally pair with Volkswagen’s smallest-ever city car. The cutesy Lupo’s compact and eye-poppingly pink bodywork feels like an unlikely fit in a car-owning history spanning everything from turbo’d 1980s hot hatches to Japan’s best-known performance machinery, and unique because it’s the only one that’s stuck around. Show-stealing styling and the mechanical heart of a Golf R32 make a pretty strong case for not parting ways with it, but the roots of this long-term relationship run much deeper. “A lot of people ask me why I’ve kept the car all these years,” he tells us. “It’s a cool car, but it’s more of a sentimental thing. When I got this car, I’d just lost my job and I had absolutely squat all.…

After our last round in Bonny Scotland it was back down south(ish) to a sunny Cadwell Park! With a few new faces and some returnees to CVWC it was all to play for. With little or no testing available, for many it was very much a case of just getting out there and getting on with it! Newcomer to CVWC was Neil Oakley in his stunning Class B Mk1 Beetle, having never driven this actual car round Cadwell it would be a bit of a baptism of fire for him, as well as returning drivers Andrew Dean and Mark Shepherd in their immaculate Vento and Golf 4 examples! Another newbie to Cadwell was GT Class Pro, Adam Marshall, who had to learn Cadwell in the 15mins of qualifying!! Also, series…

What makes the mighty Transporter such an appealing proposition when kitted out as a camper van? Whether it’s their unrivalled versatility or the ability to provide home comforts at your fingertips as you explore the great outdoors, we’ll all have relatively similar stories in our path to ownership. With these vans acting as such a fantastic blank canvas to build up and create the perfect companion with, combined with the recent Covid-fuelled ‘staycation’ boom, it helps to explain why there are currently more aftermarket camper conversion options available to you right now than ever before. Unless you’re getting your camper directly from the VW dealership forecourt, however, knowing exactly what sort of conversion you’re going to get can be something of a minefield. Thankfully, there’s a new outfit on the…

TYRE TYPES There are many types of tyre, everything from energy saving jobs to full on motorsport track heroes. What makes them different, and gives them varying handling characteristics and longevity, is all in their construction, compound and tread pattern CONSTRUCTION The wider the tyre, the more rubber on the road and the better it will grip and lay power down. That’s why many RWD cars run staggered wheels and tyres as standard. What isn’t so obvious is the fact that running a lower profile tyre can improve your car’s handling. This is because increasing the size of rigid alloy and reducing the rubber sidewall will cut down on tyre flex and help keep the tread square to the road. COMPOUNDS Tyre technology and compound development is a thoroughly scientific…

Don’t get us wrong, military-precise concours competitions and corporate-backed stage seminars all have their place when it comes to car events, but Tatton Park VW Show always has the knack of illustrating that the real memories usually comes from throwing out the rule book and going a bit wild instead. For countless years, this event – based within Knutsford’s Tatton Park and formerly going by the name of VW North West – has perfectly balanced elements of a killer VW car/van show with more than a healthy dose of family-focused frolics. And it’s undoubtedly this formula that keeps the hordes of satisfied attendees coming back year after year. 2023’s instalment of Tatton Park VW Show was supported once again by Manchester-based tuning powerhouse, Awesome. These guys don’t do things by…

ID.GTI CONCEPT REVIEW! While we’re still a little bit dubious about the future of fast, electric performance VWs (the lack of sound still gives us sleepless nights), if Volkswagen’s latest ID. GTI Concept is anything to go by, then we certainly won’t need to worry about the styling. Would you just look at it? While ID. models (ID.R aside) up to this point, have appeared to be somewhat bland, the same can’t be said for the GTI Concept - it’s got character, road presence and a shit load of attitude. Back in 1976, when the Mk1 GTI was launched it got the media’s attention right away and the GTI Concept seems to have done the same - it’s got chins wagging about the VW brand again and for all the…

Being the owner, and builder, of an attention-grabbing show winner of a car is a lot like being a superhero. Bold statement? Yes, hear me out, though. Modern superheroes have a detailed origin story, a series of events that led them through adversity to where they are today. Most have a faithful sidekick, rescued from a life of crime or other bleak future, with them through thick and thin. And, they nearly always have some behind-the-scenes unsung heroes without whom none of it could happen. In that respect, Kim and his trusty RS4 are no different. In fairness, Kim’s first trials and tribulations don’t appear to be all that bad. A series of hot hatches that culminated in the perfect trifecta of all the Cosworths, three-door, Sapphire, and his…

Located on England’s South coast, the seaside town of Southsea often has the precursor of ‘sunny’. I live in the area and on the week leading up to the Sunday 6th of August day of the races, it was anything but. Whilst the constant rain was good news for my parched garden, it was more than a little worrying for the organisers of Beach Dubbin which is not only a great car show but also holds the title of Southsea’s biggest one-day event. Thankfully the weather gods took pity and Sunday was largely sunny. The early warmth and a steady sea breeze did a good job of drying out the large expanse of grass that is the Southsea Common show location, separated from the beach and the Solent only by…

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