DONAVEN VADIVELOO

Revving up aesthetics through cosmetics

I STILL maintain that the VW Citi Golf is the veritable “Ferrari” of the South African working class.

It is a car that has consistently defied the norms of traditional aesthetics and technological appropriateness.

The Citi Golf epitomises the Volkswagen ideology of building cars for people that are passionate about driving rather than merely commuting.

It has to date been one of the most regularly featured vehicles on the “My Sweet ride” column. This is in no small part owed to the vehicle’s virtually limitless scalability as a result of the wealth of aftermarket performance permutations available.

Learner rock blaster Donaven Vadiveloo is a 20-year-old Montclair resident and VW enthusiast.

Vadiveloo, like many previously featured VW owners, is also a member of the popular locally based VW Illest Owners car club. His VW Citi Golf is the subject of this week’s feature.

Mechanically Vadiveloo’s car was kept relatively standard with the exception of a Cowley exhaust back box.

The exterior of the car sports a typically handsome lowered suspension drop on a set of 14 inch CTI mag wheels mated to a set of Sumitomo rubbers.

It further boasts a Golf Mk3 front lip, Golf Mk1 mudflaps, Eagle eye 6000k HID’S, a pair of customised tail lights with both the indicator and reverse lights tinted. The exterior also boasts a host of decorative body panel stickers.

The inside of this Citi was kept pretty basic and standard.

No Golf is complete without a killer sound system. This one is no exception.

It features a near full Pioneer system which includes a Pioneer head unit, tweeters, mids and 6x9s. The Pioneer system is mated to a Pioneer Champion subwoofer mated to an XTC 2000 watt monoblock amplifier. An undisclosed amount of money was spent on this build. When Volkswagen released the Golf Mk.1 in 1974, the car was an overnight success. It was easy and economical to drive with exceptionally good handling compared to other small hatchbacks of the time.