First. Car. LIVE! #1: [VW Golf 4 VR5 4Motion] Share your thoughts and rate it in the comments below.

Intro: I’ve decided to start a new series (which will probably end up like the other two) about affordable cheap cars and what mods you can do to them to make them more fun.
Since stock cars are like a replay, same thing you see everyday, i want to make them LIVE! and break the monotony with some mods.

Specs

First things first, what is a car without it’s heart?
The Golf 4 VR5 4Motion is powered by a 2.3L VR5 engine with the codes AGZ and AQN, where AQN is the most powerful model of the two.
Something not all people know is that the 5 from the VR5 is silver on AGZ and red on AQN.
It has either 150HP and 205NM or 170HP and 220NM.

Description

It was launched back in 1997, produced until 2010 and was a huge success, being the most sold car in Europe in 2001.
While being a market hit, the underground racing scene picked up on its popularity and so it became one of the flagships in the tuning scene, appearing also in numerous games.
Although it didn’t get the same limited edition attention from VW as the Golf 3, it still had a few of them with their respectige designs not following a pattern.
It was going through an identitiy crisis, being the only GTI without a red stripe or a GTI specific bodykit (excluding the limited 20/25th anniversary edition). The only ones that got special body treatment were the VR6, R32 and Cabrio.
Being this succesful, the resale price dropped significantly, making it one of the cheapest reliable first cars you can buy, ranging from 700€ for a beat up one, all the way to 2000€ for a mint condition one.

Mods

This being a post about cheap first cars and cheap mods, the first thing i should to would be to chiptune it. The magic fingers of the software tuners will do their spell and boost the power of this car a tiny bit.
But, instead of doing that, i wanna work on the hardware first and harmonize it later with the said tune. Like any instrument, after being built, it needs to be fine tuned to reach its final state.
So, first thing would be to port the valves and make the exhaust valves slightly larger. Do the cams too while i’m at it.
Next stop is the exhaust manifold. I don’t really like how the stock one looks, so i’d personally chop up and adapt the one from the Audi TT RS made by APR since it has ports for dual exhausts. It has a very smart design and i think it would improve the performance quite a bit.
After that, i would install a short ram air intake coupled with a nice hood scoop or a cold air intake with the entry point in the right fender like on the T4 Transporter.
Finally i’d get, or rather make, a new dual exhaust system with free flow cats with HKS exhaust tips, all of it finished with a nice and optimized chiptune.
As for the body, i’d probably get the Cabrio’s side skirts and two rear bumpers and some lowering springs, since air suspensions are quite expensive. Why two bumpers? Because i’ll need to cut the exhaust hole from one and attach it to the other one. Maybe some BBS rims too.
The interior mods would consist of a nice audio system and an Android based head unit.
And bonus, since this is the 4Motion model, a Haldex Controller, so i could have symmetrical AWD whenever i want.

Budget

This would be the crazy part of this post. I think i could do everything i mentioned for around 3000-4000€ if i’d buy the cheapest VR5 i could find.
If i’m lucky, i could find a coupe model with a sunroof for a good price.

Conclusion

If i were to buy this, i’d choose the AQN model because it’s more powerful and has the same taxes.
Hopefully from 170HP it will go up to around 250HP, so, making it, not only a good first car, but a fun one with a pocket rocket character.
Imo, the Golf 4 is one of the best hot hatches ever made and it would be seriously fun to have and tune one.