What is it?<\/p>\n
A car that needs no introduction, but we\u2019re gonna give it one anyway. It may not have been the first \u2018hot hatch\u2019 per se, but the MK1 Golf GTI is considered by many to be the \u201cspiritual father of hot hatchery\u201d \u2013 the car that gave birth to a\u00a0phenomenon.<\/p>\n
Story goes that VW engineer Alfons L\u00f6wenberg saw the potential in his company\u2019s then-new supermini, so he gathered together a group of like-minded colleagues willing to work in their spare time on what they called the \u2018Sport Golf\u2019. When it was done they showed it to the execs, who were so impressed they gave it the\u00a0green-light.<\/p>\n
So at the 1975 Frankfurt Motor Show VW unveiled the Golf GTI (gran turismo injection). Save for the chin-spoiler, tartan upholstery and much pin-striping, it looked remarkably like a regular Golf. But under the bonnet was the 1.6-litre, fuel injected engine from the Audi 80 GT, which gave 0-60mph in around nine seconds and a top speed of 110mph. Not fast by today\u2019s standards, but plenty pokey enough for the early\u00a0Eighties.<\/p>\n Later MK1s had enlarged 1.8-litre engines (and five-speed gearboxes, rather than four) which made little more power (112bhp plays 108) but nonetheless helped them to 60mph in eight seconds. Torque increased from 103lb ft at 5,000rpm to 109lb ft at 3,500rpm. At 840kg, it\u2019s 14kg lighter than the most featherweight modern-day VW \u2013 the Up \u2013 and near enough half the weight of a MK7.5\u00a0GTI.<\/p>\n Right-hand drive cars arrived in the UK in 1979. In its first, full year on sale VW shifted more than 1,500 of the things \u2013 signalling Brits\u2019 desire for a practical, accessible performance\u00a0car.<\/p>\n If not for the pictures alone… use the link for the full article.<\/p>\n Cheers Hugh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hi all… The Mk1 Golf TOP GEAR Review taken from a few months ago… worth a read… REVIEW HERE What is it? A car that needs no introduction, but we\u2019re gonna give it one anyway. It may not have been the first \u2018hot hatch\u2019 per se, but the MK1 Golf GTI is considered by many Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16408,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9EBPs-4gz","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/vwgolf1.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/beh_1318.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwgolf1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwgolf1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwgolf1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwgolf1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwgolf1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16403"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vwgolf1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16409,"href":"https:\/\/vwgolf1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16403\/revisions\/16409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwgolf1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vwgolf1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwgolf1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vwgolf1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/vwgolf1.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/baz_1797.jpg\")
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