Picture this: it’s 1987, and Pikes Peak is coming up quickly. Everybody and their mother is running recently orphaned Group B rally cars. The mountain still has dirt stages, drivers have more bravado than ever, and Volkswagen wants in on a piece of the action. The target was Audi and Walter Röhrl…a lofty aim if there ever was one. How do you compete with a rally racing legend and the Quattro? Look over Volkswagen’s lineup for 1987and pick a car, any car…it’s going to be tough to square up against the Quattro’s super-boosted power and four-wheel-drive.
Or not. Design Engineer Kurt Bergmann saw potential right underneath the Golf’s hatch. There was enough room for another power unit. It’s a racing car, right? You don’t need backseats or trunk carpeting! The Golf II was as wild as any Group B car produced…actually, no, it was even more bonkers. Two 1.8L fours were being force-fed 23 PSI of boost and being driven via a single five-speed tranmission. The end result: a 2,250 pound VW with four-wheel-drive, front wheel drive or rear-drive and up to 652 horsepower if the need called. So long as your foot was buried, the Golf II would go straight. Let off the gas or let the engines differ by about 200 RPM and it became a minor handful to drive.
The Golf II did make it to Colorado and did attack the mountain at the hands of driver Jochi Kleint, but with a few turns left to go at the higher altitudes, a ball joint got wiped out and for the sake of safety, the Golf was retired from the event. The car had been stored up until earlier this year, and now it’s out and about having a ball with Kleint at the wheel once more!
