One out of 500 Volkswagen Golf Rallye hot hatches issued back in 1989 to homologate a Groupe A rally racer is up for grabs in Sweden for 449,000 Crowns (around $46,000 USD), a sizeable premium over the 35,000 Crowns for the latest Golf GTI.
Volkswagen launched the Golf Rallye series to respond to the continued victories of the Lancia Delta Integrale. It made extensive use of common production parts and even retained the simple Golf GTI engine, albeit boosted by a potent G-Lader supercharger.
As a result, the road-legal version of the car made 160 PS (158 hp / 118 kW) and 225 Nm (166 lb-ft), which a manual transmission carried to both axles with the aid of a Golf Syncro AWD system. Exterior styling cues included rectangular headlights and a special body kit. Despite high hopes put onto it, the model never achieved much in rally racing.
The example on sale has 2,200 km (1,367 miles) on the odometer and features a number of aftermarket modifications. These include a new hood, revised suspension based on K&W parts, upsized brakes, and a tweaked AWD setup.