1982 Volkswagen Golf GTi

The seller bought this wonderful VW Golf GTI new back in 1982. Imported from Germany – he thinks he paid around £5,900 against £7,200 from a UK dealer – it is fitted with the rev-happy 1600cc engine and five-speed gearbox that many enthusiasts prefer.

Recently restored at vast cost (well, we think £40,000 qualifies as vast…), it’s still completely standard and even still sits on the factory wheels.

And why is he selling it so soon after having it restored? Partly because he’s in the process of restoring another car and selling his Golf GTI will avoid the need to sell a kidney, but mainly for love; he restored it because it held so many great memories for him but he’s honest enough to admit that he probably won’t use it very much and he loves it too much to let it sit and fester.

Black is a helluva tough colour to pull off, highlighting any flaws with the ruthlessness of your ex’s briefing notes for their divorce lawyer.

And yet, when it’s done as well as it is here the result is sensational. With a shine that’s so deep and glossy it looks like a sheen of oil, the finish alone justifies the size of the restoration bill.

The panels weren’t neglected though; they fit perfectly with excellent shutlines and no damage whatsoever; it might be hard to picture now but the MKI GTIs went through the same fallow stage almost every classic does. We lost thousands to rust and neglect, so seeing one as we remember them when they were new has been a real treat.

The iconic combination of a red stripe around the radiator grille, deep front spoiler, and the no-nonsense ‘GTI’ badge is present and correct – and it’s great to see he resisted the temptation to fit driving lights in the grille.

It’s got the correct pinstripes and decals along its flanks too, and they align as well as everything else does.

As for the nine-spoke alloy wheels, they look tiny, don’t they? Fitted with very good 155/70R13 Toyo Nano Energy 3 tyres, the wheels are free of scrapes, dinks and other signs of careless parking. However, there are a few paint runs and blemishes on them, most noticeably on the rears.

But, we will never get tired of telling you that experience shows that matching high-quality tyres are an infallible sign of a caring and mechanically sympathetic owner who is prepared to spend the appropriate amount in maintaining their car properly.

The front and rear plastic bumpers run straight and true, the black wheelarch extensions that cover the GTI’s wider wheels and tyres are free of scuffs and scratches, the lamp lenses are bright and free of damage, the badges are correct and in fine fettle, and the window glass is excellent.

It even still has the air deflectors on the A-pillars, which is almost never the case.

The sunroof also fits the aperture well and it slides fore and aft smoothly. It’s manual, of course; none of your electronic nonsense here, just a good old-fashioned handle that’ll outlast you.

Oh, and while the tiny single exhaust tailpipe might be unimpressive by modern standards it is correct and as it should be.

All of which means there’s little for the new owner to do. If you’re of a fastidious nature, there is a small blemish in the paint under the offside front quarterlight.

NB: The tyres are, of course, the wrong size. The seller didn’t notice that the garage had inadvertently fitted 155/70R13 instead of 175/70R13.

The interior is every bit as impressive as the exterior – and is still completely standard, which is no more than you’d expect of a car that’s still in the hands of its first and only owner.

Let’s take the seats first: still as firm and supportive as ever, their face fabric is free of rips, holes, and other signs of heavy wear. The grey multi-stripe design is as subtle as everything else in the cabin, and it’s great to see that the only sign their fortieth birthday is firmly in the rear-view mirror is the odd light stain.

The rear seat is even better and looks like it has barely been used.

The four-spoke, four-button (“if you can’t pass ‘em, blast ‘em”) steering wheel is in fine fettle too, and the golf ball gearknob shows only light scuffs.

As for the AIWA radio/cassette player, it might not provide the highest fidelity sound you’ll ever hear but you won’t care as you slot in Now That's What I Call Music 1 and enjoy classics like Red Red Wine, Is There Something I Should Know? and You Can’t Hurry Love.

Well maybe not the last one, but you get the picture.

The black vinyl headlining is very good, including that of the sunroof. The carpets, including the heel protector on the driver’s side, are all excellent.

The Golf’s even hung onto its parcel shelf and rubber hanging straps, which is remarkable as both are prone to damage, often due to an owner fitting inappropriately heavy speakers.

The boot is protected by a slightly scuffed mat, but it is the original, which is – again – worth noting. Lifting that up shows only solid and well-painted metal underneath. Again, worth noting given the Golf’s propensity to rust.

Which means the only thing for you to do is to sort out the clock, which isn’t displaying properly and, perhaps, the trim on the offside A-pillar which doesn’t sit underneath the door seal as neatly as it could.

As you can see, it starts on the button but then the GTI always did; it’s hard to imagine what an impact the presence of fuel injection on a small, cheap car made but being able to start without faffing around with a choke – and to be able to drive off straightaway – was life-changing at the time.

It also idles and revs well, but we do note the battery charge light is on, so that’ll need investigating.

As for the cosmetics, it is every bit as good as you’d expect given the recent investment. The smaller details stack up too, including minutiae like the plastic caps at the top of the suspension turrets that always go astray. A small thing certainly, but then it’s the small things that separate the great restorations from the good.

The underside has been neatly painted and undersealed, and bears witness to many new parts.

The seller bought the Golf as a personal import from Germany new in 1982. He drove it as his daily driver until 1988, when he moved abroad for work. It was carefully stored before he returned to Belfast in 1995 and put it back to work. Two MoT certificates from the era, as well as the original Green V70 Log Book, are included as part of the history file.

In then went back into storage in 1996 and stayed there until 2022. It clearly needed some recommissioning but the seller’s affection for his GTI meant he couldn’t countenance anything other than a full-blown restoration.

After a long search to find the right people he entrusted it to Golf specialists Deutsche Doktors, and after waiting for two years – and writing a cheque for £40,000 – he eventually drove it home.

They did a cracking job, even managing to rebuild the Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection system, something many have found almost impossible.

He says: “The car starts and runs well and is exactly the way I remember it from May 1982”, which is about as good as a restoration gets, isn’t it?

The Golf doesn’t have a current MoT certificate, and while it is exempt by virtue of its age, we would strongly encourage the new owner to have it MoT’d at the earliest opportunity. The cost of an MoT is a small investment when offset against the purchase and upkeep of any classic vehicle, and it gives an independent, third-party assessment of the car’s condition, which not only provides reassurance to the owner (and any subsequent purchasers) but might also be invaluable in the event of a bump when negotiating with the police and any interested insurance companies…

As for the paperwork, this is to follow but he assures us that he has all the invoices for the restoration plus photos of it in progress. There will also be a V5 registration document with the number ‘PIJ 2562’.

Many of us will have driven secondhand MKI Golf GTIs back in the day, not so much to save money but because they were already extinct having been replaced by the heavier, slower, and more cumbersome MKII version.

And this was a time when the MKI Golf GTI might have been appreciated but it had yet to appreciate enough to make it worth spending the sort of money that was necessary to preserve them.

Of course, now we’re older and wiser - and possibly a little better off - we might be able to afford to restore one but that’s a fraught process and one that inevitably turns out to be way more expensive than even the most pessimistic projection might suggest.

The car has been so recently restored it has only covered around 15 miles since restoration so will need a service after 1000 miles of running in.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that we expect this one, which is almost like new, to fetch somewhere between £25,000 and £30,000.
Yes, that’s a lot of money but it’s not only considerably less than the seller spent in restoring it, it’s not far off what only slightly better than average examples are fetching these days.

Still think its too high?

Well, in that case you’ll be pleased to hear that the seller has enough faith in his car to offer it with no reserve, so it’s going to sell no matter what.
That’s auctioneering at its purest, with the market deciding how accurate – or not – our estimate is!

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