Let's play a little numbers game. Number one: to be at one with yourself, to indulge in a one to one, to be someone's one and only. Number two: It takes two to tango, the terrible twos, and as the Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock sample goes, "It takes two to make things go right." And if I may continue to paraphrase, "It takes two to make it out of sight!" Which brings me quite swiftly to this second-generation Volkswagen Golf.
It may not be as covert as some of today's Q-car Volkswagens, but it's still a mere lamb in comparison with what lurks under the hood-and as it happens-inside the trunk, too. At this point, I must point out that, as a child, both my mother and father would regularly accuse me of bending my findings, imagining the unimaginable, and blatantly lying through my teeth. Which is why I can just see my mother now, glaring at me, hands on hips, "What have I told you about lying, Jonathan?" But it's true mother, honest it is. For the first time in my life, I'm telling the truth. There really are two engines in that car.
My mother may continue her skepticism, not entirely convinced of my talk of two engines, two this and two that, all in one car-but you believe me, don't you? After all, it's not an entirely revolutionary practice to go and cram two engines into one automobile, but then again, it's not exactly commonplace either.
In America, it's a little like fighting talk, with not much else to back up the tall tale, while such talk of two into one in Canada adds up to nothing more than an urban legend. A bit like them Canadian Mounties, right? Anyways, I stupidly made a bet in a bar one night-up in Canada with some of the locals-admitting that I'd happily eat my own hat if I ever came close to either of these gross conducts of perjury. As it so happened, the very next day, there I was cruising downtown Toronto in such a car.
Did I eat my hat? Well, no-but I sure did take it off to salute the tuning firms behind this amazing creation, a combined initiative of Eurospeed, Fast Lane Motorsport, and, the brainchild of them all, Evolution Racing. Situated on the corner of Dupont and Dufferin in Toronto, Evolution Racing is run by brothers Fernando and Tito Tora, the latter being the man behind the myth. A myth that has since been turned into a howling 400-horsepower all-wheel-drive rolling reality.
Truth be known, I would have not only eaten my hat, but also my shoes, jacket, and underpants just to spend another hour in the passenger seat of Tito's twin-engine Golf. If anything, to find out how on earth he got a whole bunch of clashing parts to work in true harmony. Tito could write a whole book on how the concept came to fruition, how he set about convincing his team that he hadn't totally lost his marbles, and how he lavished his life's savings on what others claimed to be a total waste of time. But we only have four pages, so a condensed explanation is to follow.
The main ingredients were a Forrest Green Golf II, already fitted with a 2.8L VR6 lump up front, a huge box of components, and a second VR6 engine, sourced from a crash-damaged Golf.
I don't really have to explain the huge amount of time and energy involved in parking a second motor in the rear, but the level of craftsmanship does deserve endless recognition. Both motors are pretty much stock, with EIP cylinder heads, stock transmissions accompanied by two ACT race-derived clutches, and a duo of custom headers, both of which trail into one silencer and tip.
Although two identical tailpipes exit at the rear under the red Mattig diffuser, only one acts as a silencer. The other pipe acts as a duct for the PRM cold-air intake, inspiration drawn from Porsche. Custom-made aluminium radiators, complete with modified fans, provide separate cooling for each of the engines; the combined power of which is calculated at 400 hp. No slouch by any means, especially when you consider the extra weight this Golf has to haul around.