nee.dragger

Those are some old pictures. An article was done by Road & Track or Car and Driver circa 1980. The 928 engine was shoe-horned into a widened VW Golf (Rabbit in the U.S.) and that was the end result. If memory serves me correctly, it was a 7 second 0 - 60 Golf (or thereabouts) and sub 15 sec. 1/4 mile car. Never heard how many were in the end result.

Vilhuer

Golf in Dave's pictures is not one of the Nordstadt's, body is too new. 5 door Golf didn't exist back then, at least not that bodystyle and all Nordstadts should be 3 doors.

Flint

I'd read that the Nordtadts weren't so mush wide-bodied Golfs, but a 928 chassis stripped and "disguised" with golf-looking panels.

Nicole

Correct. Except the dorrs, the Nordstadt Golf has no single piece of sheetmetal from a Golf - it was all special made to look like a Golf...

Funny thing: The Nordstadt Golfs were faster than the 928 - because they had a lower drag coefficient. Talk about "looks can be deceiving"...

Nicole

I can't help it, but this engine looks like it shrunk. I cannot see how you would fit a 928 engine into the front of a Golf like shown in the pictures. This must be a Photoshop dummy.

Flint

I think you may be spot on with that, the extra metal in the engine bay may be helping the illusion. But then again, there's a reflection on the inside of the hood...but its real indistinct.

SharkSkin

Doctored photo, no doubt about it.

Andrew Schauer

A friend sent me this article today, so I thought I would add it to this thread.

CT928

Ok, that's very clever, but why was it done????
The golf looks so wrong and the 928 was very expensive back then. Waste of money!

Barry Johnson

Maybe the body of the 928 was wrecked?

Nicole

There are people out there who do not want to flaut their money. They like something nice and unique, without anybody noticing it right away.

Note that in Germany, many buyers of luxury cars choose the model designation delete option when they order their Mercedes or BMW - it's nobody's business what engine you have under your hood.

This conversion basically takes the idea of understatement to the extreme, and I'm sure that people were quite surprised on the Autbahn, when a Golf flashed them off the passing lane at speeds above 200 km/h. At the time, the fastest Golf (GTI) reached 184 km/h, if I recall correctly...

Oh, and the Golf body not only had a lower drag coefficient than the base 928 - owners could also transport their dogs in the back.

Nicole

Nope - AFAIK they were all built on new cars.

Flint

This may be apocryphal, but I'd heard that was started in what we quaintly refer to as the "fuel crisis" when upper managers and such would buy their cars, they'd initially buy the ones with smaller engines so their workers wouldn't slash their tires--then when the employees got used to the car, they'd quietly upgrade to the full-power version, making everyone think they were still driving a more economical vehicle.

Any truth to that, or is it just myth? I find it hard to believe that European workers would be that vindictive.

bcdavis

I love how people shout out "Photoshop" whenever they see something they doubt the validity of.

Jim bailey - 928 International

The comment in the article that the custom wide wind screen cost about $3,500 in 1979 is one indication of how expensive this project had to be. And yes I read the article when the car was NEW.