ABANDONED GTI Gets First Detail In Over 25 Years! | Satisfying Detailing Restoration

For 25 years this legend has been waiting, trapped in the shadows, covered in dust, forgotten by time. But today, we bring it back. The Mark I GTI, a machine that defined an era, has been locked away since the year 2000. Now we pull it from the darkness, pressure wash off years of neglect, and breathe new life into an icon. This isn't just a detail. This is a resurrection. I think it's right in here. Let's see. Wow. Look at this thing. Holy crap. Ryan, what's going on, man? What's going on? How you doing? I'm all right. Wow. I've never actually seen a Mark I GTI before. We actually had featured a Mark I Rabbit on the channel that Ryan had bought from us, and he actually got it running, and now he drives it all the time. I see it all over the place, which is seriously the coolest. But he's now bought, what year is this? This is an 83. 1983 Volkswagen Rabbit GTI. Sick. I've never seen one. We've done a Mark II on the channel, a Mark II GTI before, but never a Mark I. This thing is sweet, but it's really, really dirty. Where'd you find it? So this was up in Cleveland, Ohio. It was in a house that was foreclosed, and a buddy of mine bought the house and hit me up and was like, hey, do you know what this is? Can you tell me what it is? And I'm like, well, that is either an 84 or 83 GTI, because I couldn't tell that it was black. It was blue, I thought. So blue would be like 84 with blue interior. And then I went up there, and I found out it was actually an 83 with red on black. Wow. That's iconic. I mean, Brad, come look at the front grill up here. It doesn't get any ... Was this a flagship color, or was this the one being marketed? Yes. This is the first year America got the GTI. Really? Yes. Wow. It's dirty, but it's not in the worst condition. I mean, a little bit of rust over there on that quarter panel, but for the most part, this thing's in good shape. What was the main differences between the Golf that we sold you? I can't even remember what year it was. So that was a 79. So that was one of the last years Germany was shipping them over to America. And then they opened the Westmoreland plant, and this was actually Westmoreland built. So this was built in PA. So it has the square headlights, as you can see. The other one has the rounds. And they have side markers up front. The 79 does not. And obviously, difference diesel was the 79, and this is a gas 1.8 liter CIS injection. So the other one was four-door. This is two-door. And the interior would show a little bit different on it. I mean, so that would have been like a single round gauge cluster, and this has the big square gauge cluster with the down, because this is technically what you call a late Westy. I would not have been able to tell the viewers about all that information. Two questions for you. Do you like the two-door or the four-door better? See, I've grown partial to the four-door because of the 79, but I've always wanted actually this exact thing in a GTI, because I don't own any GTIs. All my Volkswagens are just base model Golfs, and I was like, I'll never own one unless it's literally a two-door 83, red interior, black exterior, GTI. And you found it. And I found it, yes. That's freaking awesome. The last question, then we'll figure out how we're going to get this thing out of here. Do you prefer the circle highlights or the square? Circles. Yeah, I think the circles. The circles are kind of the move. I agree. Drop a comment down below which one you guys like. Again, we're circle boys over here. Thank you, man. Of course. I appreciate it. And I know that Mike is going to absolutely love this. Mike is a huge VW guy. He has a Scirocco, his Eurovan, he has a Jetta too. Having Mike see this, he's going to be extremely, extremely excited. Brent, should I tell them what we're going to do with this car at the end of this? I don't think Ryan even knows. We actually plan on taking this to a VW dealership and comparing the new Mark VIII with the Mark I, and seeing them side by side, and seeing how much bigger the cars have gotten, and how much more advanced, obviously, significantly more advanced. But it's always funny when you sit passenger to driver in new cars versus sitting here. I mean, you're basically touching- Knee to knee almost. Yeah, exactly. So I think that would be cool. And I think the viewers would really like to see yesteryear and what is the future now. All right. And this thing will roll, huh? Yeah, let me get it to unlock real quick. Sure. And as we pull the GTI out of this unit, I want to remind you guys that we hadn't seen it yet, but it was sitting in another garage for 25 years before it was moved here. We just weren't available the day that it was being moved. So we had Ryan film a little footage, which you saw at the beginning of the video. And I have to say, we are going to be taking off again next week because we're working on something that's very, very special for you guys. It's something we've never, ever done in five years of our YouTube channel. And it's going to be taking up all of our effort for next week. So we will not have time to film a video. And that's going to be releasing on March 1st. So make sure you're subscribed to our channel and you don't miss our March 1st video. But we will be back the Saturday after next. But before we left back to the shop, Ryan wanted to give us one more update on a car that we did in the past and you guys got to see, which was really cool. Oh, nice. Fresh exhaust on her. Oh, yeah. Wow. This thing looks great, man. Holy smokes. Look at the wheels, too. This thing. Yeah, this thing's sweet. Those wheels are actually just as rare as the carb. Wow. Nice. Yeah, this car is in such good shape. This definitely was the best of the bunch. Oh, yeah. Definitely a good one. So it's sitting on coilovers now and tucked both front and rear bumpers. All right. Now it's time to head back to the shop. And I'm super excited because Mike loves Volkswagens and he doesn't know that we picked this up yet. So don't miss a second. My first impressions are this thing is pretty dirty, but I'm super excited for this one because I love old Volkswagens. I personally have a 87 Scirocco, which had the same platform frame as this car, the A1. And this is obviously the older version. And this thing's sweet. We've worked on, you know, the base model Rabbit. And now that you see a GTI, what differences can you tell right off? Well, I know a bunch of the differences already between these cars, but the big ones that you can obviously tell if you just see one on the street is obviously the first thing is the red line across the car and the grill. Also, these fender flares, although they are small, they do add to the aesthetic of this car a lot. Those are the two things that would jump out to people. These wheels, these tires are a little oversized. This isn't correct for this car. They're just so small and so cool and so fun to drive. So he has the original snowflakes that came on this car, but he decided to put these wheels on so that we could transport it here a lot easier, which is very nice because it saves us a ton of time. We don't have to put the vehicle on jack stands to make it not sink on the one side and look 100 percent. 100 percent. But one other thing that I noticed is down here, you have this front valance. Yeah, I know that those other gals did. No, no, that's a that's a bigger feature on this car as well. My Scirocco has a very large one, too, and that's factory fitted. The bad thing about the ones from the US is they're big bumpers, but I still like how they look. These are aftermarket as well, but they kind of fit the front end of this car pretty good. So I have something to actually show you on these aftermarket. What do you call those fog lights? I believe they're Bosch. And I was told that in the rear here, we actually have the Bosch covers. So we'll have to definitely add these on for sure at the end. For sure. Give it some. I actually have these. Do you really? At my house, brand new in box for my Scirocco. I just never put them on. This is one of the longest standing cars that have been in production, especially for Volkswagen. I think it might be their longest. But instead of other car brands who have changed their cars completely, Mitsubishi had an Eclipse that was a coupe and then they made it into an SUV. Mustang. No. They made an electric and an SUV. Thankfully, they still make the Mustang. But I hate when they pilfer the brand for a new product. Dodge Charger. Dodge Charger was a coupe way back in the day. And then it was a sedan. Now, you know, like I don't like that. I wish it stayed the same. This was a hot hatch back then. It's a hot hatch now. But first, I'm actually going to be removing these wiper blades because they look old and tired and they're in the wrong positions anyway. So I'm going to pull these off. That way we can make sure we can pressure wash all this dirt off. I guess we'll vacuum up some of the poopies and then we can start on the wheels. And really quickly, guys, before we vacuum them up, we just noticed these spiders all over the engine bay that are completely white. And I don't think we've ever seen this before. Mike, do you have any idea what this could be from? No, dude, I've never seen that. Anything like it? If anyone in the comments has any clue what this is or why this happens over time, leave a comment down below. All right, now that the wheels are done. What are you doing, dude? Sorry, my brakes are getting a little squirrely on me. I had some boots on layaway from this video's sponsor, Brunt. So I'm just goofing, new boot goofing. Oh, wait, what? I'm just goofing, new boot goofing. Oh, those are nice. What kind of boots are those? They're called the Marin Toes, and they were under 150 bucks, which is crazy because they're really flippin' nice. And they're the most comfortable work boots that I've ever owned. The best part is, is that if I didn't like them, I could actually send them back free of charge. And they pay shipping both ways. So if you don't like them, just send them back. Well, you don't have them. I wish I had new boots. Well, what do you know? I pulled some strings, literally, and got you a pair of boots from Brunt. Now you can new boot goof too. Sick. I need to put them on and do a kick for everybody. Yes. What are you doing, Mike? I'm goofing, new boot goofing. But really, I can truly say that Brunt boots are not goofing around. They make a quality boot that's extremely cost effective and are going to last a really long time. The best part is, like we mentioned before, if you don't like them, you can send them back to Brunt. They'll cover the shipping costs too, and they'll cover the shipping costs back if you're in the United States. And if you guys go to Bruntworkwear.com slash WDDetailing10 and use code WDDetailing10, you'll get $10 off your first order. Thank you so much to Brunt for sponsoring this video. But now I have some business to attend to. Now we're going to get into the pressure washing part, and I wanted to show you guys the prewash that we use in every single video. It's what you see us apply to the paint before we actually use a pressure washer on it. And I wanted to mention you don't have to have a car that's this dirty at home to use prewash. It could just have a light layer of dirt and dust on it. But what it's going to do is it's going to help remove and release all of this dirt and dust and help us get it off the paint safely when we're using the pressure washer, which prevents us from causing extensive damage when we're on the wash process later on. And I just wanted to show you, we're always using it in the pump sprayer because Mike likes it that way. Are you looking at me? Are you filming me? No. There we go. All right, guys, I have a question for you, and I'm definitely going to butcher this one, so do not roast me in the comments, please. But right there where all the stickers are at, the top one says something along the lines of Farfanugen, something like that. I know it's definitely in German. I don't speak German. Again, don't roast me. But who knows what that means? This car had a 1.8 liter four-cylinder engine, which had 110 horsepower, quite a bit more than the regular Golf, which had about 70, 75 or so. These cars had crippling issues from the injection system, the CIS system here, which actually still works on my Scirocco and functions perfectly. But a lot of guys would run into issues with that and issues with vacuum leaks on these vehicles. So a ton of guys just take these old cars and take this motor out and put something else in. So what would you put in? This car's probably going to end up with a diesel engine because the owner likes diesels. But for me, I would either go one of two routes. A very common swap for these cars is called an ABA swap, which is a two liter out of a 1996 Jetta or something like that. That's a really easy swap, bolts right up, and it's a horsepower bump by just a little bit, and it's very reliable. It has a lot more torque than this engine does. I would love to see a 1.8 turbo or two liter turbo out of a Mark 4, Mark 5, Mark 6 GTI thrown into this because this car weighs so little and if this thing had 200, 250 horsepower, it would be an absolute riot. So let me know, you at home as a viewer, if you got this thing and this thing was never going to run with this motor again, what would you want to put in this thing? Let us know down below what you think would fit good for this car. Have you ever seen one of these built to like crazy power before? And can they handle it? With a lot of added rigidity to the frames, I've seen Mark 1 with V10s. I've seen them with V8s. In Europe, they do a lot of crazy things with these cars throughout the Audi VW platform. They like to take the motors and throw in these things. So yeah, I've seen cars like this with over a thousand horsepower. So it's definitely possible, but we're talking about sinking an unbelievable amount of money into something like this. When in reality, something like this would just be happy to get back on the road with a motor that's, you know, not too crazy expensive. All right. So I guess the assumption is that this motor is going to get ripped out, but we should probably still clean it just so the owner has an easier time getting it out and it's not all dirty. 100%. We're going to do that. And then we don't really know. Maybe he will deep dive into this motor afterwards. It doesn't seem to be missing anything and it doesn't seem like rodents got in here. So there could be a good chance to get this thing up and running. Maybe get rid of the CIS and do carbs on this car and run it that way. So with that being said, I'm going to get started on the wash process of this engine bay, which we'll be using our citrus degreaser. Moving on to the interior of this 83 GTI. Now, as you guys can see, it's in pretty rough shape, even around the steering wheel, which is funny. These two different materials kind of gathered a little bit of mold action in a different way. I really do like these old interiors. It's small and it has literally just what you need in it. It did have a radio at one point and then heat and that's about it. I know this interior color might not be everyone's favorite, but I think it matches the car's personality quite well. The red lines on the exterior, which match the interior styling and also the iconic golf ball shifter in the GTI. I think this is a great touch. Although I don't really like the shifter boot. I didn't realize these cars came with boots like this. My Scirocco has a leather boot and this one looks quite pedestrian to say the least. But that's exactly what this car was. This was quite a cheap car when it first came out. Even though it was the performance model, this thing still was very inexpensive. So anybody can drive one. Anybody could have fun in a car and that's what this car is all about. Now let's take a quick peek what's in the glove box before I get out of this interior. We got the owner's manual. This is one of the first models that doesn't even say GTI on the manual. If you buy a GTI of other years, it'll say GTI on the manual. But what's really cool is the original keys, which are called skeleton keys. Now my Scirocco doesn't come with keys like this. My keys on my car are called pill keys, but these are obviously called skeleton keys for this like skeleton look. I think it's pretty interesting. I don't know any other brands that have a neat key like this, but they're one of my favorites. So looking through this GTI, I found a lot of different various parts and some maintenance records, but this is what I'm most excited to find. In this little booklet is everything that was ever done to this car. So this was a handwritten by the previous owner, 1983 GTI, wrote down the VIN, license number, the purchase state, mileage, and everything they did to the car. And there's upkept records throughout this whole thing with dates, 89, 89, what they did, the oil changes, the filter changes, everything's in here. I love seeing stuff like this. This is what's the most interesting. This lets me know that the previous owner actually took really good care of this car. Without this, I would not know that any of this maintenance has ever been done besides visually seeing that it has new tires or those brakes look newer or hey, that's clearly an aftermarket part. So I love finding stuff like this and I'm sure the new owner's gonna like going through this book. on the rest of the interior. So we're gonna be using our interior cleaner coupled with a bunch of different tools. And I have to say, this is one of my favorite interior transformations that we've done to date. Moving on to polishing the GTI and we have our work cut out for us. This hood has been absolutely destroyed from sitting in that garage for so long, especially in the area where those boxes were matted and disintegrated here on the hood. But the good news is, is that this is a single stage lacquer which means it's going to be very easy to remove this oxidation and some of the staining that you see all over the car. One spot that I can really show you guys the staining that I'm talking about is right here. It's kind of like a cloudiness but you can see these streaks that were probably caused from rain coming out of the rain rail and coming down the rest of the car. But this is going to end up being nice and dark and a deep rich black and I think the end result is going to be awesome. And now we're at Ken Ganley Volkswagen of Willoughby Hills to compare the Mark I GTI with a brand new Mark VIII GTI and I'm going to need some help which is why we have Kevin who is a sales consultant here. Kevin, how are you doing man? I'm doing fantastic. How are you today? I'm doing well. Thank you so much for taking the time. Yeah, absolutely. To go over the first generation and now the VIII generation GTI. So I guess the first place that we'll start is obviously styling. The original one is much more boxy compared to this one which has rounded out over the years. Yeah, absolutely. They did a lot over the years to change the aerodynamics of the car, work on fuel economy a little bit. These things on E87 which is what all of VW's turbocharged engines run off of aside from the Golf R of course. These things are averaging about 35 to 40 miles a gallon depending on the driver of course. If you're really slamming on it you're going to get less. If you drive like a granny like I do you're going to get a little bit more. One of my favorite styling cues that was retained is the red line down the grill. I love how they carried that onto the newer models and kind of paid homage to where it all started from. Oh, absolutely. I mean, as you can see from the buses behind us VW loves to pay homage to where they came from and give us an idea of where they're going in the future. So obviously, Kevin, over time these have grown substantially in size. I believe the overall length of this car is around 146 inches. How much bigger is the new version? So you're looking at about 169 inches here. 168.7 to be exact for those technical nerds out there like I am. So we had to take a second to do the quick math but we figured out that it is two feet larger which is absolutely massive. It's substantial. It really leads to a lot of interior cargo room is the biggest difference between the two. They made the Mk8 very, very practical as a daily driver as well as an enthusiast car. I want to get into the interior here in a second but first I want to focus on obviously the powertrain. Once a car gets significantly larger and heavier I think this was about 1,800 pounds. How much does this weigh? About 3,100 pounds. Wow. So that's like 66% more weight roughly. Don't test my math, guys. I know I'm wrong. But anyways, it's significantly heavier so obviously you need more power to propel the car forward. And Volkswagen did just that. So this car as it sits right now stock is putting out about 241 horsepower to the wheels and about 273 pound feet of torque which is miles ahead of where the Mk1 was. So you can see kind of where it came from and where it's going. Well, in my personal opinion I think this is a hideous engine bay. Mike might disagree but I'm a big fan of nice clean bays. Obviously the plastic is very clean. And I mean, there's a bunch of differences. I think you guys said this is a 1.8 naturally aspirated. This is a 2.0 four cylinder turbocharged stratified injection engine. Like I said, it puts out about 241 horsepower stock. These cars are made to do a lot more. A simple tune and a cold air intake you'll be pushing 300 in no time. All right, now we're into the interiors of the GTIs. And obviously this is lacking a lot of technology. A lot of technology and a little bit of the space. I like that you have the cutout for the radio here. Yes, yes, except no radio. Maybe they were trying to replace it with something more modern. Well, Kevin, it's cramped in here. Let's go into the big one. Absolutely. Now we have a little bit more room and I can't lie, it smells a lot better here. Definitely. There's the difference between sitting in a barn for a couple of decades and just getting it off the truck and having it freshly detailed for you guys coming in today. Something I noticed off rip. I know we're here to talk about the technology and the interior, but it's a manual too, which is so nice. The last year for Volkswagen to make manuals. This is 2024 is the last year they'll ever make a manual GTI. Yep, 2024 is the last year you can get yourself a manual GTI. They did extend the GLI in a manual to a 2025. But if you want a manual GTI new, fresh off the lot, you gotta look for a 24. And the last thing we'll cover is the pricing. Obviously back in the day, this was I think around five or $6,000, depending on how you spec it out. But in today's money, probably around 20 to 24,000. Again, depending on specifications. How much does the new GTI cost? So the new GTI, depending on trim level, you're gonna run between 35 and 42,000 brand new. But that comes standard with Volkswagen's four year 50,000 mile warranty on top of your first two or three services covered by the dealership themselves. Obviously you're getting a lot more car for that money compared to the one that you were getting back in 1983. But the real question I have for you, Kevin, is if this, well, it is a perfect brand new GTI. If this was a perfect brand new 1983 GTI, which one would you rather have? Oh, you're putting me in a hard place here. As somebody who daily drives a 2024 Volkswagen GLI, which shares the same platform as the GTI, I love that car. But as an enthusiast, I'm going Mark I. That's the right answer, dude. Heck yeah. Kevin, you were awesome, man. Thank you so much for the time. Thank you so much. Absolutely. And if you guys wanna follow along with this dealership, obviously they have enthusiasts working here, which is really nice to see. You guys can follow them at Ken Ganley Volkswagen of Willoughby Hills on Facebook and on TikTok. Or you can just stop by whenever. We are located conveniently at 28400 Chardon Road in Willoughby Hills, Ohio. There you go. But we need to get this back into the trailer because we have to go and do the big reveal for Ryan. All right, Ryan, are you ready to check out your GTI? Yeah, definitely. We have another surprise inside for you. Our fans have already seen what's inside. Oh, dude. I'm just out here. You know, we had a video sponsored this week. We're on footwear. Yeah. And so I figured... You've seen Reno 911? Yes. Okay, cool. I'm glad you got it. Otherwise, this would have been weird. Hilarious. Oh, dude, get out. I can't believe it's still black underneath it. It's insane. Yeah, the interior came out really, really nice, actually. I'm surprised how well it held up for its age. Yeah, same, honestly. Oh, yeah. All of the mold and mildew that was everywhere. I'm lost for words. I can't believe it's this black underneath it. So what's your plan? So you're gonna take this car. What are you gonna do next with it? Your first idea. I'm gonna try to get the CIS running inside of it. There you go. And then I'm gonna swap it. So if you get this motor running, you're gonna take it out anyway? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, if I get it running, I'll probably putz around in it with the motor in it for a little bit. Personally, I don't like CIS. You can hate me for that. I have CIS and I do like it. But I can get it because this is probably gonna be a bear to get running. So I totally understand where he's coming from and why he would want to swap it. But you're gonna diesel swap this thing? Yeah. What motor? 1.6 turbo diesel. Okay, okay. Yeah, a little GTB. Yeah, shout out to Aki with his Scirocco with a 1.6 in there as well. How long do you think before this thing's back on the road? Give me about two weeks. Two weekends. That's quite impressive. I gotta say, you've been a phenomenal friend of the channel. Of course. I'm glad you not only own the diesel rabbit, the Wolfsburg edition rabbit, and have that thing back on the road. And I know in two weeks, this will be driving around. It'll at least be turned over and running in the shop. But we'll see about driving on the road by then. Thank you all so much for watching. If you like this video, give it a thumbs up. If you want to see more videos like this, hit subscribe. And we'll see you next week.