You walk out of the building early in the morning after a long night shift. The sun is backlighting the sky from beyond the horizon with some amazing colours which are highlighted by grey stripy clouds hanging low in the atmosphere. The moon and brighter stars are still high in the heavens and are tinged a reddish orange, then to top it off there are wispy white patches of fog dotted around.
You ask yourself a quick question, do I go home, have a drink and hit the hay or do I fire up my Volkswagen and make the most of the beautiful morning and clear roads.
Indeed, there is only one answer to that.
The coffee and pillows were just fine thanks.
Not really. The black and white beast and I went on a bit of an adventure. Not a very long adventure mind as I needed my bed but far enough for me to warm it through and get more familiar with it.
I appreciate the chassis is pretty much the same as all the other mk7's I've owned, the body shell is exactly the same as all the other mk7's I've owned, the view from the driver's seat etc etc.
But there are the little details put into the car that make a lot of difference, and sometimes it's the small details that are the important ones.
On paper it's pretty easy, you've got a GTI PP chassis set up and a Leon Cupra tune in the Golf R engine. The Cupra originally came in a choice of 265 or 280PS then 290PS. A good friend of mine owned a 280 back when they were released and it was a very impressive performer.
In general driving the feel is GTI PP and the acoustics are Golf R.
First and second gears don't feel anything special and indeed like the Golf R they feel a bit too low to make use of the torque without either changing up early as they feel a bit snatchy or holding the revs and risking wheelspin.
Then you hit third coming off a roundabout.
I'll assume that sans pedalbox you'll need to hit the kick down button at the back of the throttle pedal to release the overboost but with pedalbox fitted it feels like it boosts earlier in the pedal travel.
Now 25bhp extra in a lardy modern car doesn't actually sound much. I've had remaps with 60 and 70PS extra and you do notice that but 25bhp shouldn't really be that noticeable. In theory.
It's the way it's delivered that's the thing.
I reckon it must be the grandson of the guy who decided it would be both funny and fitting to have a golf ball gear knob in a GTI or 'sport Golf' back in the 70's that was put in charge of the ED40 throttle mapping. I'll assume the generation of family in the middle were sent off to work for SEAT Sport and retired in the sun whilst their grandchild returned to the Mothership in Wolfsburg.
When the overboost comes in it actually feels quite savage for a mere 25PS, the acoustics take on a really angry note which is pretty impressive for a standard exhaust (sondaktor turned down to ECO) and the car just rockets forward and, just like the GTI PP before it, the VAQ takes on this uncanny feeling of dragging the car forward almost like it's being towed behind something very fast and powerful on an elastic band.
Ok it's not brutally fast like the JB1 Golf R and it doesn't have the huge boot of torque that the DTUK GTD packs to kick it out of a roundabout and up the road far quicker than the low revs recorded on the rev counter would have you believe.
But as a standard car it's actually pretty impressive.
The VAQ works miracles with the Bridgestones.
Then when you get back to the 40 then 30 limits the car just goes back to being a Golf. Comfy, flexible, over 30mpg on the computer and just a burbling hint from the exhaust.
Maybe I'm easily pleased but I think considering it's nothing out of the ordinary underneath it just makes you want to drive and drive...
Thankfully someone with something a bit more hardcore under their bonnet and chassis didn't come along and humble me on their own early morning jaunt. Now that might have made me question things a bit more. So for now I'll just sit and be smug, it just a boring old Golf after all.
