HOT HATCH HEROES

They're a dying breed, yet the best transcended humdrum heritage to be among the most entertaining drivers' cars ever. Octane takes a trip to the good old days

- John-Joe Vollans

VOLKSWAGEN COLF GTI MK1

It’s a tale that’s been told many times, so let’s not dwell on the out-ofhours work of a band of VW boffins, headed by PR wizard Anton Konrad and engineer Herbert Schuster. All you really need know is that a supposed six-person team toiled at Wolfsburg – presumably to the sound of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn – to produce the ‘Sports Golf ’, turning the pedestrian Beetle replacement into a totemic trailblazer. A production run of just 5000 – plus a thought-to-be-detrimental price

– was agreed by VW suits and, after a genius decision to swap the prototype’s dual-choke Solex carburettor for Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection, the Golf GTI went on sale in the summer of 1976. In case you hadn’t guessed already, that projected figure was a little pessimistic: more than 2.3million GTIs have since been made across eight generations.

Humble by modern standards, the first GTI’s 1588cc engine – donated from the Audi 80 GT –  was practically muscular in the mid-1970s. Its reliable and efficient 108bhp gave the GTI a top speed of 112mph, with 60mph appearing in a smidge over nine seconds. Sitting lower and riding firmer than its less sporting siblings, the GTI was fun to drive, frugal and dependable – far from universal attributes at the time.

This example is one of the later (post-1982) 1.8-litre 112bhp versions  –  incidentally,  so representative of its type that it’s been immortalised by Corgi. Despite bringing only a handful more horsepower and torque to the party, the way the 1.8 delivers is significant. The buzzy 6100rpm peak power of the early GTI is brought down to a more manageable 5800, while the peak torque threshold is breached at just 3500 (compared to 5000).