Thumbing through the January Issue of PVW I noticed a little picture of a Trabant engined Mk2 Golf, it got me thinking about other non-VW engine transplants, so here’s a few I’ve picked out for your perusal, from the sublime to the quite frankly ridiculous…

First up is the aforementioned Trabant engined Mk2, built by the guys from XS Factory in Dresden, now my German isn’t up to a lot, but hopefully I’ve got the gist of it ok, basically a 5 door Mk2 of 1985 vintage, it’s had huge amounts of smoothing done both under the bonnet, and in the cabin, with the original dashboard removed and replaced by something a little more utilitarian from the East German “classic”, the transmission tunnel has gone completely, having been rendered useless by the addition of the Trabant’s column shifter, door cards are completely smoothed OE items, to the point where the internal door handles have gone, as have the window winders in the rear, which are finished in a gloss cream colour to match the Trabant Seats.

Stance is taken care of by a set of KW’s finest, and the rolling stock is a set of fully polished 17″ Merecedes Segin alloys, wrapped in  gossamer thin 165/40/17 tyres.

Motive power (if you can call it that), is supplied by a mighty 595cc 2 cylinder 2 stroke again from that papier mache master piece, producing a heady 26bhp it’s certainly not going to be setting any performance records, but the standard of the work involved looks just as high as any other show car out there.

More pictures and info can be found over at XS Editions online magazine, but your German best be better than mine.

Just to give you an idea of what it sounds like here’s a YouTube video

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYh2ODGoWfg]

Now for something a little different, I first spotted Baz’s S2 Powered Golf on Youtube, then after a bit of digging found the build thread over on the S2 Forum. We had a chat with the creator at GTI International last year, and he couldn’t have been more down to earth if he tried. The quality of the build is something you’d expect from a top flight motorsport preparation company, not a guy in a garage, who doesn’t do this sort of thing for a living!

It all started off after the builder had got fed up of braking various bits of his 20vT powered Mk2 Syncro, so obviously the next logical progression was to go and build an Audi S2 powered Mk2, easy, apart from the fact the S2 is a longitudinal 5 cylinder engine, and the Mk2, well, isn’t…

First stage was to build subframes and a rollcage to tie the Audi’s subframes into, allowing the Audi’s entire front end to be fitted into the Mk2’s shell. Then the same for the rear, allowing the rear differential and suspension turrets to be fitted. Next up was a whole load of very tasty parts to make it go that little bit better, including a huge GT35R turbo, and a load of V-Clamps to build up the manifolds. Fast forwarding a few months, the car had received a nice new coat of Alpine white, the wheels had been refurbed, and the new KW’s had been fitted up, it wasn’t all plain sailing though, with several parts being quite literally tested to destruction, including the inlet manifold, and unfortunately one of the pistons!

The car has been complete and running for a while now, but is constantly being developed further and further, and has been running into the 10’s on the quarter mile.

I’ve put a YouTube video up, because the speed and noise needs to be seen to be believed, but those with sensitive ears beware, there is a couple of naughty words in it!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBiFgEdgQZk]

And finally, a French Creation, this time a Rallye, again powered by an Audi engine, this time V8, and twin turbo’d…

Word on the street is that the all alloy Audi lump weighs less than a VR6, so in theory handling shouldn’t be too compromised, but with the builders gunning for around 800bhp it’s going to be a bit of an animal if/when it’s finished, last update was a video of it running on YouTube, but not sure how much further it’s come on since then.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By7RHtR0qd0]

Is it sacreligious to do that to a Rallye, or is it just cool? Feel free to add your thoughts over on our Facebook page.