This afternoon Tendy came over. Tendy’s a guy I met at Top One Automotive. He has a highly modified Golf GTI and I introduced myself as soon as I saw it. He’s now an active member on Christina’s Golf Forum and since then I’ve also designed a web site for Naroop, his olive oil company.
Today he handed me the keys to his GTI and boy was it fun. The excitement was building as soon as I sat in his R32 Recaro bucket seats. Not as grabby as real race buckets but a lot more grabby around the shoulders that the stock R32 seats in Suga’s car. I then noticed the aftermarket paddle shifters which are huge and have an interesting grippy texture to them. I started the car and a familiar Defi gauge intro sequence blinked to the right of my field of vision, awesome!
I was off and at the first corner I dabbed the brakes and realised they were as touchy as Suga’s R32 (these cars have way too much grab!). On my short but spirited drive I realised just how different the car was from Suga’s R32. The car was quiet but on shifts it made a damn loud and very pronounced “BRRAP” sound from the exhaust which sounded a lot like it was dumping a whole lot of fuel out the back on each shift! The shifts themselves were damn aggressive too, a lot like the MKVI GTI I test drove last week. I loved the way it shifted. Cornering felt very light like the MKVI GTI too. On parking the car the screen came on and showed me a video view out the back of the car with projected guide lines to help me park straight as well as nice and close to the gutter. A nice luxurious touch which I thought might have been more at home on the R32 than the GTI.
Overall I was just in awe and how different it felt to Suga’s R32 Golf. Surprising as they share the same chassis. Tendy’s GTI hits hard from 3000rpm. Got to love that turbo rush. Suga’s car is also peaky up the top but in a totally different way. Much smoother, much more linear, more refined and more luxury than sports.
I’m convinced a GTI is the way I want to go if I sell my Skyline. I’m also quite sure I’ll be getting a MKV GTI and not a MKVI as I was more than happy with the aggressive shifting on Tendy’s DSG GTI.
Naroop!
Brembos FTW.
RPRSNT!
Defi love.
The inside is a nice place to be.