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When we first featured this iconic Mk1 Golf way back in 1999, it was like nothing we’d ever seen before. Almost a quarter of a century later, amazingly, the car still remains the GOAT. Here’s why…

With its futuristic, square-edged design and groundbreaking electronics together with the powerful 5.3-litre V8, the William Towns-designed Lagonda was like no other car produced by Aston Martin before or since. To mark the 45th anniversary of the saloon reaching production, we explain its development before driving a beautiful early example.

Alejandro de Tomaso rescued Maserati from the wreckage of the Fuel Crisis and based the new Ky alarm on a car of his own marque. Richard Heseltine says the surgery worked.

After the distinctively cheeky character and idiosyncratic mechanicals of the rear-engined aircooled Volkwagens, getting into the firmly-bolstered plaid-clad drivers’ seat of this Golf GTI MkI feels like a total culture shock. Everything is angular, futuristic, hinting at computerised systems and digital precision, created in the same kind of ultra-rational post-oil-crisis idiom that produced things like the Porsche 928 and W126 Mercedes-Benz S-class. Only in-house stylist Herbert Schäfer’s contribution, the gearknob – Schäfer was a keen golfer – hints at any notion of fun. And yet in the Eighties, the Golf GTI would define driving excitement.

Beautifully prepared with an outstanding motorsport spec, this Ford Fiesta Mk1 is just waiting for its time to shine…

It may have taken the best part of 20 years to finish, but Neil Shore’s Mk1 XR2 turbo is an incredible creation built from pure determination — and a love of Fiestas.

In the early 1980s, a designer sought a calling card. With backing from The Observer newspaper, this unique glass-topped BMW 635CSi E24 show-car was the result.

This restomod Capri is at once quintessentially British and wonderfully multicultural, shaking off the conventions of the scene to create something unique.

Showcasing Buick’s turbo technology in the early Eighties was this one-off model, the PPG Buick Skyhawk Turbo, that was built to pace the Budweiser Cleveland 500 in 1982…

By and large, when it comes to the business of fitting innovative technologies into their cars, automobile manufacturers tend to reserve such features for their flagship models or limited-run offerings. The price tags and discerning clientele who can afford it justify the cost of such fancy features.

Martin Cliffe developed the engine for the Lotus Turbo Esprit, yet he’d never owned one until recently. Today we both drive it, then compare notes on how it shapes up retrospectively.

You can make a lot of progress on a project over ten years. Forest Benner has taken his Caddy to the next level…

After the demise of Abingdon and the MG sports cars, the Metro arrived amidst some controversy. It wasn’t a big hit with the purists but, today, Austin- Rover’s first hot hatch has quite a following…

Only a handful of endurance racing cars are strong enough to finish their debut race and fewer still finish on the podium.

Life Cycle The high-speed musical life of the Lynx Eventer prototype, featuring Tina Turner, Sir Bob Geldof, Cy Curnin, Howard Jones and a bootful of synthesisers. What began life as a substandard outcast soon became a showpiece, and mobile rehearsal studio to.