So we seem to have agreed that the 8v is slower than faster cars and faster than slower cars. That's how I'd sum up how the argument seems to be going. Doesn't make much sense.
It does seem that an awful lot of people here weren't around when VW launched the Mk3 GTi. I remember the roadtest (can't remember if it was Performance Car or Car magazine), pitting the Mk3 against it's ancestors. The result? The Mk3 won (and I remember this, cos at the tme I was rooting for the Mk2 - I was 11 years old. The magazine claimed it had all the performance of the Mk2 8v (remember people there is more to performance than a straight line - what a Mk3 loses on the straights it gets back in the corners), but with oodles more equipment, safety and refinement. It wasn't until the Mk4 came along that VW tried its best to kill the GTi, with a soggy chassis,a breathless 1.8 litre engine and more rubber in the suspension than a tyre factory. Unfortunately it seems to have tainted people's memories of the Mk3, which was actually a well sorted, punchy car.
The Mk3 can easily be prodded to very fast road speeds, and it can maintain them once it gets up there. I'd call that a pretty fast car.
