Chris' Object of Automotive Desire - 1/24

I've always had a thing for the original Volkswagen Rabbit/Golf and the resulting GTI - for one thing, my uncle used to ice-race a yellow Rabbit with great effect in South Dakota. At an early age, he presented me with a custom-painted yellow Matchbox Rabbit with his sponsorship decals assiduously affixed (he is also a master model crafter), and from that day onwards I thought it would be awfully cool to own a Rabbit/Golf/GTI of my own.

The first-generation Rabbit/Golf was a revolutionary design - a sharply-creased replacement for the bulbous and obsolete Beetle, it incorporated the space-saving lessons learned from the original Mini into a larger design with a cavernous hatchback, crisp driving manners, and attractive Guigaro-penned lines. It was an instant hit in America and directly influenced every economy hatchback since made for this market.

The GTI was similarly seminal - it was the first mass-produced hot hatchback, offering in the dark days of the early 1980s a mighty mite performance car made fun thanks to agility, not cubic inches, and without sacrificing utiliity. The legendary GTI line has continued, finding its recent apex in the Golf R32 super-hot-hatach of several years ago, but the original still carries the most purity of line and intent.

During the car-shopping trip several years ago in which I tested the Merkur and eventually bought my beloved Malibu Wagon, I tested a GTI with the hope that I might finally own one. However, the fact that it was completely knackered, combined with a steering wheel that made my hands smell like Cool Ranch Dorito's, convinced me it wasn't the way to go. And really, that's true of all of the early GTIs - it's very difficult to find an original GTI that hasn't either been thrashed or destroyed.

Here's a great page where somebody documents their GTI rebuilding project:

http://www.gatm.com/cars/gti.html