Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. Today we're going to check out a car that proves what a small world this really is; I was over at the parents' place the other day- yeah, I'm still on speaking terms with them in spite of having been given a girl's name, since it's that name that's given me the gravel in my gut and the spit in my eye- and my mom asked, "Have you seen that race car parked down the street?" Race car? Sure enough, parked about five doors down from my childhood home, here's the El Moto Loco VW Golf from the 24 Hours Of LeMons SF race in May. One day you're scraping fenders with a car on the race track, and a few months later it's lowering the property values in your parents' neighborhood!
These guys had some great Lucha Libre costumes, and they'd probably have made a run at People's Choice if it hadn't been for the impossible-to-beat costumes of the Eyesore Pimps. Their Golf was pretty quick on the track, as you can see in the video below:
Now it's got license plates and lights and the rest off the street-legal stuff, and it sees regular transportation duty. I'm sure it's a real hit with the locals (actually, they probably tolerate it, given that the list of team member names painted on the car includes a couple of prominent Alameda family surnames).
Slap a few gumball-machine decals on that body damage- it's better than Bondo! The Golf for '89 had 85 horsepower, which, given that this car had a curb weight of just 2,137 pounds, isn't as bad as it sounds. The cage probably adds more weight than the not-so-ruthless interior gutting removed, but it also adds chassis stiffness and crash protection that makes airbags look pointless. Perhaps 6-point cages and 5-point seat harnesses will become standard factory equipment!