Inside of a unit, like the one down your street, there happened a story that you’ll want to read. For far out in Germany, somewhere in the North, lay the small town of Wolfsburg, the home of the Golf. A classic, a modern, for track or for show, there’s no end to the options if that’s what you know. See that hatch out of Wolfsburg snags covers a lot. But this festive issue, it did NOT!

The ’Grinch’ stealing this year’s Christmas top spot needs little introduction if you’re familiar with his tree-stealing wagon of choice. From his ‘Polo Shed’ in South Somerset, Tom Sayer’s Berg Cup inspired Mk2 Coupe S has materialised in videos posted to an ever-growing audience and with the not-so-occasional hit of fancy dress. But whereas Dr Seuss’s furry-faced festive villain took presents away, Tom built something that came very close to becoming an actual stocking filler.

“I think this all came out of being a teenager during the whole Max Power era, I still love all of that,” he tells us. “Before social media, people would come up with a fucking bonkers idea and just do it instead of wondering what everyone is going to think. There was a lot of bad bodykits, but some pretty cool stuff came out of that too. And I love just getting stuck in and trying things – the reward of having something unique is epic.”

Despite appearances, the shed is more hobby than business. Tom earns a living keeping large estate house grounds looking pristine, and being his own boss allows plenty of flexibility to shuffle working hours and find time to bring those fucking bonkers ideas to life. When it’s not out hauling Christmas trees, this green machine lives in a clean, well-lit, and generously tooled space between a Mk2F panel van and a Mk1 Polo track car. And yes, there’s history with this one.

“One of my friends had a Mk2 Polo as his first car. He was about eight months older than me, so by the time I turned 17 he’d been driving quite a while and had bought a Mk2 Golf instead. I bought the Polo, and that’s where it all started,” he continues.

“But that wasn’t this car. I took the day off work to watch England-Jamaica in the World Cup, went to my mate’s house to see if he wanted to come. But I reversed it like a dick down his drive, the front end washed out on a load of wet leaves and I backed into someone’s steps instead. Instant regret. I nearly cried.”

He’s been brand loyal since. A Mk2 Golf replaced the mortally wounded Polo, followed by a Mk2F Polo GT, and then his dream car – a Mk1 Golf GTI – at 21. By 2015, he was building a custom Mk1 Caddy and facing some lengthy downtime, which in turn meant looking for a sensible daily. For £550, a 53,000-mile Mk2 Coupe S was a cheap hit of nostalgia even with a set of wheels and coilovers added to the bill. Turns out it wasn’t that easy to part with.

It washed out on wet leaves and I backed into someone’s steps. I nearly cried

“The guy I bought it from had painted it white, but hadn’t taken the plastic trims off or keyed it up properly, so after a few years it was starting to flake. I’m not very good at getting rid of vehicles, I’ve ended up just getting bigger places to keep them, so I took it off the road to freshen it up and fit a new engine – instead it turned into a four-year rebuild,” he says.

By this point, business was booming. Tom got as far as stripping the car of its original engine and sourcing parts including the 1.4-litre twin-cam from a Mk3 Polo before the day job began bleeding into his spare time. After six months gathering dust as a rolling shell, the desire for progress outweighed his preference for DIY and he put out a call for help on Facebook.

That help wasn’t local, but it was worth travelling for. James Masterton (or @jamesytuning on the socials) has shoehorned all sorts of non-standard engines into early Polos – including PD130s and even a VR5 – so a bike carb’d 16v would be as easy as, well, stealing presents from Whoville. And, with Matt Lewis Racing next door for parts like the oil cooler, radiator and slimline fans, the only hassle was trailering the rolling shell two and a half hours across to Dorking.

“What James doesn’t know about early Polos isn’t worth knowing,” laughs Tom. “He did everything without a rolling road, jetted the carbs and fitted them with it stationary. People always told me carbs are unreliable, but you just need somebody that knows what they’re doing and can set them up properly from the get-go. It’s never given me any problems.”

Already over deadline, the sensible move with a now-mobile car would have been playing it safe with the rest of the spec, but that’s not really Tom’s style. When a staggered set of 14-inch PLS Hockenheims came up for sale, it was too good an opportunity to miss. The trouble is, early Polos don’t take kindly to aggressive stances without a lot of arch work. And this one’s had more than most.

“I hadn’t heard of PLS before, and there isn’t much information about them,” he explains. “These were on Facebook Marketplace for £850, and they would have been 13s originally so they’d had barrels and lips at some point to go up to 14s, but they were in a really poor state. They’re also ridiculously wide – 9.5 inches with a -100 offset at the back, which is completely outside the original bodywork – so I’d need to cover them.”

There’s no off-the-shelf fix for that sort of fitment. The tyres held air long enough to get measured by Alex at Fibreworx, and everything is bespoke. Those rear arches are extended fronts from a Mini, and add six inches per corner, while the fronts were made from scratch at four and a half inches each. The Berg Cup theme is rounded off with a splitter from a Mk1 Golf, but re-shaped to tuck in in line with the arches instead of the body.

PLS use a unique bolt pattern, so a replacement would have had to be custom made

And he wasn’t done yet. Tom mocked up his own side skirts in laminated chipboard before getting Fibreworx to make the real thing, and the rear diffuser is home made too. Version one was made of cardboard, and used as a template for tig-welded aluminium structure you see here, and he’s since designed his own rear canards to hide some of the tread, and made his own lower spoiler too.

If the one-offs weren’t tricky enough, the source of all that hard work hadn’t given up being a thorn in his side. Tom got lucky finding two mismatched pairs of centre caps with different sellers, and used them to have replicas made, but had no such luck with the damaged front lip. PLS use a unique bolt pattern, so a replacement would have had to be custom made if he hadn’t had a brainwave.

“There’s a guy called Wayne Allman, who’s got a Volkswagen bus dragster,” he continues. “Wayne is a really clever guy who makes a lot of stuff from scratch, so I dropped him a message on the off chance. He told me to bang the wheel in the post and he’d fix it, like it was nothing. It’s been tig welded with new material added, and he’s straightened it for me so it’s like it’s brand new. I couldn’t believe it.”

It’s a corner that really couldn’t have been cut. Polished by Dan at Wheel Unique and running colour coded centres, they’ve dialed in the most aggressive stance you’ll see on a Polo anywhere outside the actual Berg Cup. And no, it isn’t trailered or kept off the road when the weather turns. Tom’s racked up 25,000 miles so far, across Continental Europe and to shows around the UK. Aside from giving rear wheel bearings a 12-month lifespan, it’s been a reliable tourer, too.

With that in mind, it helps that the motorsport influences stop with the bodywork. Rear bench aside, it’s got most of the original creature comforts and would still have the factory sports seats if the rack of Recaros at Retro Retrims hadn’t convinced him otherwise. They’re a hybrid, if you’re trying to place them – square-bolstered RS Turbo seats but with fishnet headrests lifted from a second set.

Having a gameplan helps, he says: “A few people have asked why I’ve gone for a racey look and then not put bucket seats in there. I’m not a fan of bucket seats in road cars and taking the fucking harnesses off every time you want to change the radio. This is a bit classier, and even driving across Europe it’s the comfiest car to be in.”

The view isn’t bad from the driver’s side either. Tom had those Digifiz clocks on ice for almost ten years, promising himself he’d eventually build something worthy of them. It speaks volumes about the talents of Digifiz Shop in France that they look factory fitted – a job that’s required custom wiring, a frequency converter and custom dials to show miles per hour, and clock adjustment carefully repackaged into a Polo dashboard blank.

I lit it up every run and drove it like I’d stolen it, then I drove it two hours home afterwards

“They’ve cost me a small fortune, but they’re just the coolest fucking clocks, aren’t they?” he smiles. “It’s jobs like this that made the build take four years. I didn’t want to cut corners and rush things, so I’ve done it when I can afford to do it properly and been patient.”

That includes revealing some of the biggest details. Tom went to the effort of test-fitting everything then dismantling it again for paint, but the colour itself hasn’t changed since the days when it was going to be a quick engine swap and a tidy-up. That Grinchy hue is Surf Green Metallic from the North American spec Mk3 Golfs, and it was only when the pace of the build overtook his Photoshopping skills that social media got to see it as anything other than grey.

Good things, of course, come to those who wait. The Polo got as far as the UK finals for the Hot Wheels Legends Tour – and one step away from being immortalised in 1:64 scale. It’s the kind of once-in-a-lifetime gig that would usually push a car into hiding. Tom had other ideas.

“The weekend before the final I was up at Prescott Hill Climb for Retro Rides. I really wanted to just light it up off the line and drive it as hard as I could, but at the back of my head I could imagine myself towing it to Birmingham the next week with a broken driveshaft or something. My mates pushed me to do it, and I did five runs, lit it up every run and drove it like I’d stolen it, then I drove it two hours home afterwards. It’s done me proud.”

And with space to keep exploring what he’s got here, that process hasn’t finished yet. There’s a turbo’d G40 engine in the unit waiting to go in, and plenty of fine-tuning that can take shape in occasionally costumed social media posts, and Tom – not one for getting rid of cars anyway – has no plans to cut ties any time soon.

And what happened then? Well, in the Shed, so they say, a turbo’d G40 engine should put more power its way. And the minute that progress doesn’t feel so tight, there’s that Mk1 track car to bring back to life. Tom’s bought all the toys, and fuel for it to feast. And he – he himself – has evolved this green beast