“Just get a Camry…or a Corolla…or a Jetta. Something you can drive everyday, so you can play with that hot-rodded pile you have.” That was a line spoken to me by a squad leader when I was in the Army. At the time, I owned two vehicles: a Dodge Ram that was a nice truck, but was killing me on fuel costs, and the 360 powered, four-speed equipped Dodge Diplomat that just flat rocked. Gas had gone up in price to $1.75 per gallon, which was hitting the young McTaggart’s pocketbook pretty hard at the time. (Nowadays I’m over the moon if I see fuel under two bucks…gotta love hindsight, right?) I was going to trade the truck in on something smaller and better on fuel, but I didn’t know what to get…and that sage advice was handed to me. Just settle.
But why? Why should anybody settle for a sewing machine with the personality of melting vanilla ice cream when there are neat vehicles that offer so much more? Check out this Volkswagen Scirocco…it sits on the Volkswagen Golf platform, so you have fuel mileage, some performance leanings, good handling, and light weight as plusses, and it’s all wrapped up in a Giugario-shaped design that is quite appealing. The second-gen Sciroccos were the first VW that I decided weren’t too bad…in fact, I found them interesting, sporty and kind of cool. Not bad for someone who thought the rest of the brand was disposable.
I like the scirocco, and being a vw there are numerous engines that can be fitted from an old gti engine if you want something simple to fit right up to the r32 and 1.8turbo. Lots of tuning parts out there too. I’ve seen them fitted with honda vtec engines too but thats a lot more work
I owned a first gen Scirocco and it was a great little sporty car. I would buy the current model but it’s only offered in Europe.
Way back when I had an 80 Scirocco S, it was a fun little car.