Few automobiles lend themselves as effectively to being personalised as Volkswagens. And it’s been this fashion for many years, whether or not you’re speaking Beetle or Jetta, Microbus or Touareg, Karmann-Ghia or Cabriolet. Throughout generations spanning from air-cooled, rear-engined classics or fashionable all-wheel-drive turbo rockets, VW homeowners like to make their automobiles distinctive. A visit to this 12 months’s Cult Traditional present in Coopersburg, PA solely strengthened what I’ve identified since I used to be a highschool twit with a rockin’ Rabbit.
Now in its 18th 12 months, Cult Traditional is placed on by native VW/Audi tuning and restore store NLS Auto Store. The identify of the store stands for Nothing Depart Inventory, a clue to the mindset of Josh Passhaus who based the enterprise and the present. And whereas Josh could have offered the enterprise a pair years in the past (to fellow fanatics, naturally) his spirit nonetheless feeds the vibe at Cult Traditional.
The low-key gathering caters principally to homeowners and followers of modified VW and Audi automobiles, however it’s open to all comers. Because the present has developed, it’s now frequent to see JDM tuner automobiles, American classics, and a wide range of different German efficiency fashions on the sphere.
Wandering this 12 months’s present, I used to be taken again to my very own days of constructing modified VWs. Over 15 years, I owned a string of seven completely different Rabbits, Golfs, and GTIs. Every of them was modified to some extent or one other together with customized paint and inside work. The gang is rather a lot youthful than I’m today, however the automobiles nonetheless lend themselves to the free expression of their homeowners.
For some, it’s efficiency tuning. The arrival of the VR6 engine and later the 1.8T and a couple of.0T turbo four-cylinders put VW on an influence journey beginning within the mid Nineteen Nineties. And the aftermarket exploded to satisfy it. The construct high quality on a number of the present’s greatest tuner automobiles proves how far the market has matured.
Likewise for paint – or ought to I say coloration? VW homeowners have at all times been development setters in terms of daring colours and distinctive remedies. At this time’s vinyl wrap movies have opened new doorways for experimentation. Most of the present automobiles on the sphere sported customized bodywork like smoothed engine bays and grafted-in fender vents. The execution was persistently spectacular, as have been lots of the paint jobs.
Maybe the one space the place the scene has developed essentially the most since I departed practically 20 years in the past is interiors. When VW went again to providing plaid fabric on the GTI within the early 2000s, it began a development. At this time plaid fabric seats are the mark of a critical construct, with many homeowners making use of the remedy to costly aftermarket seats. The alternatives of coloration and sample are a lot broader in consequence. At this time’s present automotive interiors look so significantly better than the plain black leather-based that was the usual.
The annual journey to Cult Traditional takes me again to the enjoyable I had constructing a automotive on a shoestring funds whereas studying to grownup. I could have moved on to different tasks, however down deep I nonetheless determine with all of the youthful fanatics on the present subject. Who is aware of, could I’ve another GTI construct left in me. Maybe a Euro-spec first-gen Golf GTI…
