Born: 1974 Died: 1992: If some original VW thinking had come to pass, the world may never have known the Golf name-plate. It seems that this iconic car was originally to have been named Scirocco, and its sporty version the Scirocco Coupé. Both cars were designed in parallel by Giorgetto Giugiaro, with the sporty hatchback successor to the Karmann Ghia revealed first in March 1974 at the Geneva Motor Show. The more bread and butter hatch, now called Golf, came a few months afterwards.
Both generations of the Scirocco shared their platform with the Golf and the subsequent Jetta saloon variant. The dynamics of the car were much more sporty, though, and its shape significantly smoother. The power units at launch were 1.1 and 1.5-litres, with the latter being the only engine available when the car went into the US market a year after its European launch.
The first cars had rectangular headlamps, but the higher-powered TS version had quad circular ones, and these last were put on to all versions when US sales began, as the popular-in-Europe rectangulars were not permitted under US regulations.
In 1976, a 1.6-litre GTi version was introduced in Europe, with fuel injection, more substantial suspension, and vented front disc brakes. This powertrain became the standard in the US models. At the same time, an unusual single windscreen wiper system was installed across the range.
By this time the Scirocco had already become quite a successful niche car for the Volkswagen brand, and was gaining some sporting successes, especially in the US. Indeed, a 1977 US ad for the car described it as "a true sports car that can bring home 16 cubic feet of stuff on Saturdays and racing trophies on Sundays."
VW was already actively looking to the next generation of the car. After evaluating competing designs from Giugiaro and its own internal design team, the company chose the latter's submission, and launched Scirocco 2 for the 1982 model year. Some half a million units of the Mk 1 had been sold.
The new car was longer, had better headroom and smoother lines as well as increased luggage capacity. It also had a new 1.3-litre engine, and an optional 1.8-litre at the power end of the range which was a DOHC and featured improved breathing with its four valves per cylinder configuration.
With 123bhp on tap, it also had discs all round, a first for the VW brand. For those happy with less, a 1.8 with just two valves per cylinder had some 30 per cent less horsepower.
A mild update in 1984 only involved small detail body changes, the most obvious being a reversion to a dual wiper system.
The run-out of Scirocco was a protracted affair, with sales ending in the US market in 1988, and in Germany in 1992, when it was replaced by the Corrado. Particularly in the US the car achieved a degree of cult status, to the point where there is even a website which details "sightings" of Sciroccos in movies, either as driven by main players or as peripheral automobiles.
Among the former are A Few Good Men, Casino, three James Bond films - A View to a Kill, Goldeneye, and Octopussy - Lethal Weapon and Fatal Attraction. Perhaps the least noteworthy appearance was in the 1978 Dawn of the Dead, where people avoiding living-dead zombies used a hot-wired display one to drive around a shopping mall.
A revived Scirocco model is planned for 2008.
The concept for this model debuted last week at the Paris Motor Show, and it is expected that the production model will use the turbocharged 2-litre TFSI engine already familiar in a number of VW Group cars, including the latest Audi TT.