Photos + Words: James Wallace
Hello my name is Geoff Skinner, and I’m 35 from Hastings, England and this is my MK1 Golf.
I’ve loved Mk1 Golfs for longer than I can remember and I’ve owned six
of them in the last five years, including a pair of highly tuned 16v
race cars that I regularly use at the Nurburgring in Germany. This is
my show car that I use as a demo for my air ride busines here in the
UK. It seems to get a good reaction and I bought from a mate who was
emigrating to Australia, but during his leaving party we visited a
strip club and he spent so much money that he couldn’t afford his
flight out there. I agreed to take it off his hands for £1000 and then
stripped it over the winter time, repainted it, smoothed the ‘bay and
even smoothed off the engine mounts with metal caps!
C-notching the chassis allows it to go lower with the air ride and it
will now happily lay frame after I’d removed the front GTI ARB.
I love the car to bits and wouldn’t swap it for anything. If there’s
one area I could improve upon it would probably be the paint as I’ve
driven it all over Europe now and it’s picked up a few knocks and
little imperfections during more than 5000 hard charging miles. It goes
really well and can keep pace with most cars south of £40,000. thanks
to an excellent power to weight ratio.
Tech Spec -
Mk1 Golf 1.8 (KR) 16v engine from Mk2 Golf GTI, Susuki GSX-R throttle
bodies on custom made scaffold tube inlet manifold, Flowed, ported and
polished KR cylinder head with bigger exhaust valves, Schrick
camshafts, titanium valve springs,.hydraulic crane cams lifters, MOTEC
M48 mappable ECU, concealed chassis leg wiring, cleaned and smoothed
bay by Geoff Skinner Customs, Supersprint 4-2-1 Mk1 Scirocco exhaust
manifold, Supersprint 2.5-inch exhaust system. 185bhp@6400RPM
157lb/ft of torque. 14.4 second 1/4 mile
Mk4 VW Polo dashboard, Konig K5000 bucket seats, Momo Team 290mm
steering wheel
7×16-inch Audi A8 winter wheels welded and redrilled to 4×100, painted
in Ivory Beige, Nankang 165/45 x 16 tyres, HAVAIR four way air ride
system, 10mm air lines, five gallon tank, GAZ Shocks front legs, Air
lift Chapman rear legs, Electric window rocker switches for suspension
up / down, Viair LCD gauges, Pioneer headunit, Alpine components in
front doors, 12-inch MTX sub in boot build, Genesis series 3 Five
channel amplifier