Dennis bought the car 17 years ago in 2009. Over nearly two decades of tinkering, it was transformed into a perfect, mature example of European VW modding. But truthfully, we have to rewind the clock even further to understand the full story of how this car came to be.

Dennis had always felt drawn to VAG cars and so it comes as no surprise that the Mk3 on these pages is not his first foray into the marque. He started out with a few older Mk2 Polos, a GT and even a G40 amongst them, but eventually the desire for something with a bit more room and a bit more comfort grew. What’s the logical next step up from a Polo? A Golf, of course. He actually wanted a Mk2 at first, but at the time a good friend already owned a Mk3 VR6 and Dennis soon fell under the spell of the angry growling sounds produced by Volkswagen’s compact 6-cylinder. He’s not the biggest fan of engine conversions, so he started to look at Mk3s instead of Mk2s – just so he could have that characteristic VR sound. His first VR6 ownership only lasted a few months, however. That car was already a bit modified when he got it, with a drop and wheels and some other minor things and he enjoyed it at first. He suffered transmission troubles just after a few short months, however. That meant the transmission had to be replaced. Having sourced a new transmission, he set about swapping it out only to be dismayed when he tried raising the car on a lift. The lift went up – but the car stayed on the ground and with a crunch the lift was firmly wedged in the car’s crusty rockers. Taking stock of the damage revealed that it was worse than he thought: the shell was rotted thoroughly.

Dennis eventually accepted that the car was not worth fixing and set out to look for a replacement. Again, it had to be an original VR, as he didn’t want a conversion. A good friend quickly found a car that seemed like a decent candidate. An original VR6 3-door in black, located a few hundred miles away. However, the car had a broken starter and needed some more work here and there, which is why it was only 700€ (today there’d likely be a zero more!). He packed a new starter and together with his buddy set out to collect the car – they fixed the starter and got it running there and then. And then promptly drove it home without issue.

With a rough plan already in mind, it’s no wonder that the car was already stripped bare on the operation table a few days later. After all, Dennis had had time enough to envision his ultimate VR6. One of the main things he was set on was a super slammed ride height, of course. Not very surprising in the VAG community – we do like our low cars, after all! At first, he opted for a set of H&R coilovers and then started with the body. He shaved all things he didn’t consider essential: the antenna, the indicators in the wings, even the hatch got shaved, too. Given that he wanted to run the car very low, the next thing he tackled was the fenders. Dennis spent a lot of time fiddling with them to get them looking right. And then, just two weeks shy of when the car was scheduled to be in the paint booth, he had the opportunity to try on some 18 inch wheels… Long story short, he thought ‘might as well’ and set about re-doing the fenders once again, to make room for 18s. After all, he might buy a set some day. The sheet metal got cut and the fenders were then re-welded about three centimetres wider than stock, all the while keeping the OEM vibe. The inside of the front wheel wells got massaged too, to actually make room for the wheels while turning. The outside also was treated to US spec bumpers and a Jetta front end.

The thing that you’ll notice first about this car is actually its colour. What often gets confused with Porsche’s Miami Blue is in reality actually a colour taken straight from a DAF lorry! Dennis wasn’t quite sure what colour he’d paint the car in the end, but one day while he was out and about he noted that the traffic all around him was just grey and depressing. He actually started counting cars with bright colours and really didn’t like his result. They were a tiny minority, everything else was just monochrome, maybe with a hint of green or blue splashed in to the grey basecoat. Dennis decided he really didn’t like that the automotive world looked so depressing. He wanted something bright, something with some *pop*. The paintshop provided some colour charts and Dennis settled on this shade pretty much immediately.

The car rolled out for the first time in a more or less complete fashion in 2011 and Dennis drove it like that for a while. Throughout the first season, he made some plans for further changes in the winter. Once the season was over, he promptly started on dismantling the car to execute those changes – and that’s when he got a call, asking if he knew someone whose car would be a good fit for ‘Essen Motor Show’… the Golf was quickly re-assembled, but Dennis was missing some wheels. Schmidt wheels stepped up and provided some loaner wheels just for the show – and it was a good thing Dennis went back and redid the fenders before the car got painted, because these turned out to be 18s! He liked the look so much that he later bought his own 18 inch Schmidt TH-Lines and had those on the car for a few years. If you were active in the European VW scene around 2012, you would have likely seen this car on those Schmidt’s.

Over the years, Dennis took the chance to refine the car some more – the 18 inch Schmidts made way for a few sets of 17s. Most notably the set of BBS RS you can see in these photos. This set started out as 16” centres that got stepped up to 17” with 2″ outer lips all around – the final measurements being 8x17s in the front and 8.5x17s in the rear, wrapped in 185/35s and 195/40s respectively. Dennis isn’t entirely sure about the offsets, but we’d go so far as to say the offsets are bloody perfect, wouldn’t you agree?!

Not only did the wheels receive some refinement – he also switched from coilovers to a bag setup, a modified set of GAS air struts mated to Airlift management, somewhere down the line, because he got tired of all the drawbacks of driving a low static car. Nowadays he can just air it out, with the body touching the ground, at the press of a button. His usual driving height is also respectably low while being able to raise the car for obstacles. Sounds to us like he’s using the air ride as intended!

Over the years the interior got a makeover too, of course. Dennis isn’t one for half measures, after all. The front seats got swapped out for a pair of Recaro Speeds and both front seats and rear bench, along with the arm rest he also retrofitted, and the BBS steering wheel, got upholstered in a colourful fabric that is taken straight from the VW shelf. The fabric you see here comes from a Mk2 Golf, the ‘Moda’ special edition. The Golf Moda was a 1990-only special edition for the German market and the only Golf to receive this fabric. It fits great as a contrast to the bright blue outside, we think! The rear bench, even if installed and customised, is more or less unusable for people transporting however, thanks to a Wiechers roll bar providing both style and safety.

Dennis is a woodworker by trade and a special detail in the interior that many people tend to overlook is the shift knob. As a way to combine both his work and his car passion, Dennis created his own wooden shifter, a true one of one piece. Next to the shift knob you’ll find what used to be a phone mount on the center console. Today that old phone mount is now the mount for his air ride setup’s remote.

The air ride itself is right at home in the trunk. A smooth, bare aluminium tank mounted with a few retro inspired leather straps is the centre piece, framed by two compressors and an array of aluminium hardlines.

An aspect of this car that gets people talking at shows is always the engine bay. As we already established, it was important to Dennis to have an original VR6, but that doesn’t mean the engine bay has to be stock. The bay got partially shaved, with everything not needed or that Dennis considered too much being removed. A lot of shaved VR6 engine bays have a bit of visual imbalance – the engine is offset to the left a lot and most air intake solutions sit to the left of the engine. In an effort to visually centre the engine, Dennis re-routed the intake piping and used an air filter box taken from the Ford parts bin, of all places! It works, though, and brilliantly centres the VR6 in the clean, uncluttered bay.

The engine itself remained largely stock, apart from some minor bolt on mods like some rare Tezet headers mated to a Novus Group A catback with custom extended OEM style tips to actually properly fit in the US bumper cutout, which is a bit farther out than on euro bumpers.

It’s safe to say Dennis loves his Mk3s, given that this is not his only one. His daily is a Mk3 Variant and his next project is already underway – a Jetta, or Vento as they’re called in Germany, that was supposed to be his next, ultimate daily but the project escalated just a bit more than Dennis planned and by now almost no bolt has been left untouched – Oops!

As for the blue one, Dennis doesn’t think there’s any more major changes coming, but of course you never know…