As the European car aftermarket industry continues to expand, we've started noticing milestones within the scene. Our enthusiast media isn't solely reflected in publications, events and the Internet any more. Television has become a significant highlight of our industry's achievements, especially with the emergence of Speed TV and its hit reality series, Street Tuner Challenge.
For the second consecutive season, Autobahn Designs (ABD Racing) of Riverside, CA was invited to participate in Street Tuner Challenge and to build a '06 GTI 2.0T. The car would go head-to-head against a Honda Fit and a Ford Mustang on the streets and on the track. For a recap of this year's competition, see p62.
ABD Racing and VWoA have been exercising a newfound relationship that began last year. We sat down with Dave Anderson, co-owner of ABD, and picked his brain to uncover the relationship and the buildup of the new GTI.
"Being in the business since 1990, we always had an interest to build project cars," he started. "We hit VW with the idea for many years but they were never interested, mostly because they didn't know how to do it. Last year, we finally got a long-term loaner from them, which was the Jetta from last season's Street Tuner Challenge. That opened the gate for this year. They were very happy with the marketing results. The opportunity came with the second season of Street Tuner Challenge and the GTI was a perfect fit. VW came back and asked us to build a GTI."
The goals of Street Tuner Challenge have shifted from last year's agenda, which was a race for the best track car where ABD Racing's Jetta project was quickly left in the dust, behind a Nissan Skyline and a Chevy Cobalt SS. For this year's program, building a complete all-around car was the main focus, which was right up ABD's alley. "The whole deal was to choose modifications that complemented the car," Dave outlined. "It's too easy to get a hold of a whole bunch of aftermarket parts, modify the car and make something different. The real challenge is to make something different and likable."
Now that ABD was competing in a more familiar playing field, the company contemplated the amount of custom work for its project car. "Custom, one-off stuff might improve the originality of the car but it doesn't keep you in business. You can't sell handmade, irreplaceable stuff and expect to survive from it. It's the unfortunate truth. So we looked for good sources to help modify our GTI. We especially sought after companies whose product we could sell, such as Caractere and Eibach."
With that being said, the GTI was outfitted with Caractere body components, which included a front bumper, rear valance, side skirts, grille and rear hatch blend. The kit flowed exceptionally well on the car and had no fitment issues.
Then Eibach and ABD tossed the idea of developing a custom suspension setup, but the two concluded off-the-shelf parts would benefit both companies. The factory suspension was swapped for fully adjustable coilovers. Eibach also provided a complete sway bar package to minimize body roll. To add rigidity to the chassis, ABD developed a twin-tube front upper stress bar, which is still in the production stage for the general public.
The brakes were also off-the-shelf products, which included a front 12.9" Brembo big brake kit. ABD Racing already had the rear brake rotors developed from its Jetta project last year so it was a breeze to acquire a set and install them. Stainless steel braided lines were finally fitted to ensure firm pedal feel.