There was a special guest at the European Motor Distributors (EMD) launch of the Volkswagen Golf 8.5 this month: a 1979 Golf GTI racing car driven by two motorsport legends, Stirling Moss and Denny Hulme, at that year's Benson & Hedges 500 endurance race at Pukekohe.
The car was living at the Highlands Motorsport Park Museum in Cromwell by Giltrap Motorsport/Porsche Coordinator Nathan Pilcher; it was purchased back by the Giltrap family and has returned from a 20-month restoration where "no bolt was left unturned", says Pilcher.
Back in 1979, Sir Colin Giltrap brokered a deal with the VW factory to run two Golf GTIs at the B&H race: this red example and another silver car. Giltrap asked his friends Moss and Hulme to drive the first, while Kiwi drivers Jerry Clayton and Rod Coppins got the second silver car.
But just to mix things ups, Giltrap elected to run them in different specifications. The silver car had the standard 4-speed gearbox, but the red one had a 5-speed with limited-slip differential - an experiment to see how the cars compared, in case they competed in more events.
"Unfortunately that was the undoing of the red car," says Pilcher, "because it ended up with a flat tyre and finished second behind the Clayton/Coppins car."
Both the red and silver cars were purchased by the Begg family in the mid-1980s, and Ian Begg campaigned the former extensively over the years. The silver car is still at Highlands; Pilcher says there was also an opportunity to purchase that, but the Giltrap family wanted the red car especially, due to Sir Colin's relationship with Moss and Hulme.
Sir Colin Giltrap passed away on April 17 this year.
"We pushed really hard for Sir Colin to try and see the car before his passing, but unfortunately we didn't get there," says Pilcher.
There are plans for Sir Colin's grandson Marco Giltrap, who is currently rising up the motorsport ranks, to drive the Golf.
It's about to be road registered and Pilcher says it's completely ready for hot laps, 1979-style: "The only things that have been changed are safety-critical items, like seats, seatbelts and brakes."
It's period-correct, including the things that... weren't correct. Shell came on as a sponsor of the race very late, and decals were literally slapped on the car on the grid. One on the right-side door was applied crooked and that's exactly how it's been reapplied for the restoration.
"Look at photos from 1979 and the Shell sticker is on an angle, so I put it back on at an angle. That's how it was".
