I've seen Forge Motorsport's 'Berg Cup' mk1 Golf before over at Speedhunters, and I'm glad the British team made it to SEMA. America, this is precisely what you do with a small Euro hatchback.
This used to be a rusty GTI. Used to be. After a very labor intensive five month build, it became an ultra-wide lightweight tarmac monster that somehow still managed to stay road legal in the UK.
The cooling is at the back, that big box on the front splitter is the oil cooler, the roof is made of carbon fiber, the windows are polycarbonate, the suspension packs adjustable KW coilovers and the engine is a bored and totally custom built 1.8 boosted by a Garrett GTX2860 unit. The brain of the system is an OMEX 710 series ECU, which can be programmed to do anti-lag and launch control.
Toyo tires wrap the 9x15in Compomotive alloys, the brakes are six-pistons up front and there's a Tilton pedal set to operate this aero warrior.
The cost of all this? About $80,000. Worth every penny as it's Forge's demo car, which is sure to make a strong impression wherever it goes.
Photo credit: Newspress