If you missed part 1, click here to catch up on the story thus far. Now for part 2 of the GCVW article.
Continuing our coverage, we come to Sunday – the main event, the day of the show. The guys and I get up early to grab breakfast and get a spot in the show at Concord Pacific Place. The weather is looking great for a car show with +30C weather and some clouds. I’ve been to a number of Volkswagen events in both Saskatchewan and Alberta, but I’d never seen that many VWAG products in one spot. I know I said this earlier, but I was not expecting that kind of turnout with just Volkswagens and Audis.
Everything was placed around the parking lot in categories. Air-cooled was grouped together away from water-cooled. And within those groups, there were smaller groups. For example, Beetles were grouped together apart from buses and every generation of Golfs/Jettas were grouped together. The event organizers have done this show for 25 years, so it’s given them plenty of time to perfect it.
Everything at the show was built, restored or individualized to such a high level I hadn’t seen before. It might sound like I live under a rock, but in Saskatchewan, VWs and Audis are rarely this level of quality. It really rekindled my love for these cars.
Take these MK1 Golfs, for example. Each has been done to a different vision, but they’re still beautiful in their own right. If I’m being honest, soon after the show I was on my phone searching Craigslist for MK1/2 Golfs to take home.
There was a good showing of MK2s at the show as well. A common modification was VR6s and 1.8Ts, and why wouldn’t they be? They are proven power adders and the knowledge for both platforms is plentiful. But what if you wanted to be different?
Upon first glance, this green Golf looks like a normal VR6 swap, but looking more closely it has a less common VR5 swap – which was to my knowledge not sold in North America – complete with custom turbo setup. And if you think it stopped there, well, you’d be wrong. The owner had had enough of front-wheel drive and converted it to rear-wheel drive by transplanting the rear half out of a BMW e30 into the car.
The Mk3s of the show didn’t have as large of a turnout, but there were definitely still some nice examples of those that did show up, like this race-ready MK3. I tried to catch the owners of the car to ask them a few questions, but was unable to find them all day. But I know it was running low 10’s on the Friday of the event.
Unlike the MK3s, the MK4s and MK5s were out in big numbers. R32s from both generations were present, along with a handful of GTIs.
Last but not least for the VW generations is the MK6 and 7s. There were a handful of each that I saw, but I don’t think they have as much of a following as the older generations quite yet (hopefully this will change in the next few years). Representing the MK6s were a few Golfs and Golf Rs – with one even from Saskatchewan (complete with new tires). For the MK7s, it was a Golf R, a few Golfs and RPI GTI.