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It's the 40th birthday of the Volkswagen Golf GTI this year, and it seems somehow appropriate that a car originally pieced together by Volkswagen engineers working in their spare time is being celebrated by a car created by engineering apprentices.
Built in just nine months by a group of 12 trainees from its Wolfsburg headquarters, the Golf Heartbeat is based on a standard GTI Performance Pack model, but has had its engine tweaked up to a massive 400hp. On the outside, it's painted in a mixture of dark grey and bright silver, with the contrasting colours linked together by honeycomb-style patterns. There are bright 'tornado red' highlights all over and massive 20-inch BBS alloy wheels.
Interior
Inside, there are just two seats - folding bucket numbers from the Golf GTI Clubsport S. The 40th anniversary logos are everywhere, and the honeycomb grille theme is carried over from the outside. Where the back seats and boot once were is now home to a massive sound system, with 1,360 watts, LED lights and enough noise to seriously ruin your relationship with your neighbours.
Anything else?
The car will be shown off to the hordes of Golf GTI (and other Volkswagen and Volkswagen Group models) fans who make the annual trek to the Volks-fest that is the Worthersee gathering in Austria. The Heartbeat is designed to show off the skills of Volkswagen's next generation of engineers and designers, all of whom are aged between 20 and 26 and who are working and training as vehicle interior fitters, vehicle paint technicians, automotive mechatronics technicians, technical product designers and process technicians specialising in plastics and rubber engineering.
"During the creation of their dream GTI, our apprentices learn about the complexity of automobile production," says Peter Christ, Head of Automotive Technology Training in Wolfsburg. "We select especially talented young people and give them an opportunity at an early stage to learn from experienced colleagues from the entire company - for example from the design departments, the MultiMedia Center, the pilot hall and the paint shop."
The Heartbeat team won't have it all their own way though - a rival squad from Volkswagen's Zwickau factory will be bringing along a special one-off Golf R Variant 35 - which refers to a power boost to 350hp - along with a special paint job (a hand-finished one to boot), LED star lights in the interior and a walloping 2,500-watt sound system that, somewhat surprisingly, doesn't take up the entire boot.
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