In 1995 I got my first Volkswagen. It was a hand-me-down Golf Diesel that served my father well for over 250,000 km. I put over 150,000 km on it before parting company with it in 1998. That was just the start, though … the next car in my life was a silver Scirocco that really fueled my love for coupes. In two years I had all sorts of trick parts on that car; VW affectionada will appreciate the 290/448 cam, the single-throat Weber throttle body, the SuperSprint header, the port-and-polished head, the Boge suspension with upper and lower strut tower bars, the Momo steering wheel and shift knob, the Audi 5000 centre-console gauge cluster, blah, blah blah.

I picked up another Scirocco around this time (an ‘81), and also had a Rabbit GTI for a bit. We also bought a green ‘97 Gold in 1999, but were forced to sell it when we moved to North Carolina in 2001.

Not to be outdone, we bought our “dream car” early in 2002 - a silver GTI with the 1.8T engine. It had black leather, a 5-speed stick shift, in-dash CD, and every other toy it could be festooned with.

And wow - what a car. It served us well as a daily commute car for over 5 years. Other than the engine coil and window regulator recalls, it’s given us very few problems in the 105,000+ miles we have owned it.

Alas, it’s been replaced with the Honda Fit, and for the first time we’re about to be Volkswagen-less.

In a way, I have been looking forward to a change for a while now. I’ve owned at least one car from the Mark 1, Mark 2, Mark 3 and Mark 4 generation of water-cooled VW’s, and I was just ready for a change.

I still love VW’s, but the new Mark 5’s just didn’t do it for me. I’m sure they’re fantastic cars, but it was just time for something new.

The GTI will go up for sale later this week. I’m gonna miss it, but I’m sure it’ll get a good new home with someone that will let its turbo spin free.