For young Europeans, the Mk2 Volkswagen Golf is a great place to look as a first-time project car. They are relatively common, easy to work on, and really cheap. The aftermarket industry is also huge, so you can easily source a set of coilver springs, for example.
Every year, the shores of Lake Worthersee are inundated with these retro hatchbacks. After a while, the scene can get a little predictable, but we just found something unique.
Hiding the headlights was a huge design trend for American cars in the 1960s. Most manufacturers had this feature, not only for streamlining but also as a gadget to impress buyers with. Many icons had a flap resembling the main grille hiding their projectors, and the ones we can think of right now include the 67 Thunderbird, various Camaros, the Caprice and the muscular Pontiac GTO.
Obviously, the Mk2 Golf doesn't belong to that era, nor was it designed with American consumers in mind. Normally, it just has a couple of round projectors, but a passionate builder from Germany decided to give it the hidden headlight look.
This doesn't appear to be a one-off, as we keep coming up with the term "Taifun Front" on various forums, as well as an Italian company called Orciari. The VW Polo was also targeted at one time.
How do you even tell a Mk2 Golf from its predecessor? The European models have a slightly different front end from the American ones, but looking at the bumper seems to be the easiest thing you can do, as the first generation doesn't have much in the plastic protection department.
Besides the funky grille, this hatch appears to have a recent re-spray, lowered suspension, a roll cage and what look like wheels from the Renault Alpine V6 Turbo, a forgotten French sports coupe from the 80s.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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