In 1983 while I was an intern at the Volkswagen AG in Wolfsburg there was great excitement as the announcement of the revamped VW Golf Mk 2 was anticipated.

As I arrived the first of the new cars were being assembled in Halle 54 a giant factory space in which the body panels were held together with over 400 spot welds made by an army of robots as was most of the assembly work.

The 110hp GTi version of the Golf II was available powered by the same 110hp motor as the face lifted VW Golf GTi I. In 1986 in Europe and 1987 in the USA 16 valve versions of the motor giving 137 hp in Europe and 129 hp in the USA became available.

UK advertising for the GTi 16v emphasised the quality of the body, while US advertising emphasised the performance of the car with the strap line “Dust Thy Neighbour“.

Today’s featured vehicle is seen at an Oulton Park track day a couple of years ago with non standard rims. It has been estimated that around 6.3 million Golf II’s were manufactured at VW plants in Wolfsburg, Brussels, Sarajevo, New Stanton Pennsylvania, Puebla, Mexico and Uitenhage, South Africa.

Thanks for joining me on this “Dust Thy Neighbour” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !