Considered perfection.

Tom Newey is the very lucky owner of this red, big bumper Volkswagen Golf mark 2 16 Valve. Tom has always been around VW Golfs and when he inherited this Golf from his father he was able to tweak and alter it to become his ideal car.

The Golf first appeared in Tom’s life when his father upgraded his previous car to this ex-dealer demo car in 1990. Tom’s dad kept the car reasonably standard until around 3 years ago when the car and its bulging service folder (demonstrating a fully documented service history along with every receipt from B.R Motorsport and TSR Performance) transferred to Tom’s ownership and he set about some subtle but very important modifications.

Tom takes up the story “We had been thinking about possible engine conversions for quite a while and had been in talks with TSR Performance about which route to go down. The aim was never to go for the typical 1.8 20v turbo swap that seems to be more and more common these days; we wanted to keep the car ‘raw’ and true to its roots so we opted to have a full overall of our current engine. This consisted of TSR Performance boring the engine out to a 1.9, adding 83mm Wossner forged pistons and a set of Piper 274\276 ultimate road cams along with a new fuel metering head and fuel injectors. In addition, we also had a gas flowed cylinder head (to Pack A specification) and added a TSR Performance/Milltek 4 branch manifold with full Jetex exhaust system.”

To cope with the added power and urgency the now 1900cc engine produces Tom sent the gearbox away for a complete rebuild, whilst being rebuilt it also gained a new Quaife LSD and a Sachs clutch kit.

The chassis also benefitted from some attention, being fully poly bushed and having a complete set of adjustable Koni dampers and Eibach springs fitted. As a result the Golf now sits some 35mm lower. To tighten things up a little more on the handling from Tom has also fitted an Eibach from strut brace. The difficult task of stopping the car is now handled by rebuilt G60 280mm calipers in conjunction with Pagid discs and fast road pads.

“This really has made for a totally different car!” adds Tom “The difference is like night and day compared to how it was before, especially with its 7800 rev limit; it has made for a real screamer of a car”. When the car was last on TSR Performance rolling road it was producing a very healthy and more importantly easily useable 180bhp.

Performance was not Tom’s only requirement, the Golf needed to look the part too. “I’m not interested in the “scene”; running low with highly stretched tyres.” mentions Tom “In my opinion you can’t beat a good, well sorted OEM example…hope you agree!” To this end the Golf has recently had a full body restoration consisting of new seals, bumpers, G60 arches, a full respray (in the original Tornado Red that it left the factory in) as well as having all the original underseal carefully replaced with new underseal.

With the body fully sorted Tom then came up against a slight issue “My next problem was to find the ‘perfect’ set of wheels to give that OEM look that the car really deserved and needed” remembers Tom “This is where Chris at B-Star wheels came in! The B-Star 8x16” RA wheels are a work of art and what should have come with the car from factory, they really fill the arches well and in my opinion have made the car pretty much perfect”

Tom is very pleased with how his family’s Golf has turned out, we think it is a shining example of how an OEM+ car can offer style and speed all very, very subtly. Below is a complete spec list of Tom’s Golf:-

Engine

1.8 KR engine bored out to a 1.9

83mm Wossner pistons

Pack A gas flowed head

ARP bolt kit

Piper 274/276 ultimate cams

7800 rev limit

Modified fuel metering head - providing 10% more fuel

Transmission

Fully rebuilt gearbox with Quaife LSD and Sachs clutch kit

Suspension

Koni adjustable dampers

Eibach springs

Fully polybushed

Eibach upper strut brace

Wheels

B-Star RA 16” 4x100 ET35 front and ET25 rear

195/45/16 Uniroyal Rainsport 2 tyres

Brakes

G60 280mm Calipers rebuilt by Alcon

Pagid discs

Pagid fast road pads

Our thanks go to Tom for letting us feature his car and to Daryl for the photographs. If you want your German car featured let us know and we’ll be happy to arrange something!