Consistent hard work, honesty and patience is what helped the Bassa family of Durban build a rocket of a Volkswagen Golf 1 that reached 308 km/h over the 800 metre pass at Mkuze Airfield In June.
The champagne coloured Golf also made a 9.9 second quarter mile pass at 250 km/h, two feats that Ahmed Bassa – co-director of SpeedShop, initially set out to achieve.
Ahmed, 61, estimates that the Golf 1 makes just north of 900 horsepower [hp] and said that their new goal is to achieve faster times while squeezing another 250-300 hp more out of it.
His son, Nabil, 30, is responsible for steering one of the fastest Golf 1’s in the country, while Ahmed dictates the overall design of the vehicle, from power to weight and safety.
Despite being faster than a Ferrari 458 Italia, the Golf 1 is still a street legal car and is often used by Nabil to commute to and from work. According to Ahmed, this helps keep the car reliable and in working order.
“The car doesn’t have anything as fancy as people think it does. It has Eagle conrods, Wossner pistons that are off the shelf and not customised. It’s got a L ring head gasket and 10mm ARP head studs.
“The transmission is a six speed customer built box that was built by uncle Ken from Transaxle. I think he has a soft spot for Nabil because he always delivers quicker than expected.
“We initially asked him to build four shafts for us. A month later, Ken called me and said that the gearbox is out and that he was testing it. It was the first sequential box of that type with a dog engagement, straight cut gearbox that he built. It has worked well for us,” Ahmed said.
“I don’t think he knew the kind of horsepower levels the car is making,” he added.
A sequential gearbox is built for race cars because they do not require a clutch to change gears, only to take off with. This makes changing through gears quicker than a normal car, allowing it to function smoothly at peak power.
The Golf 1 runs on standard pump fuel, which is what you buy at a petrol station, and on race days runs on a mix ratio of 85% ethanol and 15% normal fuel. Ethanol burns faster than normal fuel and thus creates more power.
At the heart of the mammoth build lies a 2 litre 20 valve VW engine, which originally came with the Golf 4. Ahmed explained that there are “very little VW parts remaining” as most of the engine consists of aftermarket parts.
“The original base engine is a 1.8 20 valve engine from the Golf 4 but we added a FSI crank so that took us up to 2 litres,” Ahmed said.
On June 9, at Mkuze Airfield in northern KwaZulu-Natal, Nabil entered the vehicle in KZN Motor Racing’s drag event and achieved the goals that they set out for the car.
Nabil first entered the car in the 800m race, where he managed to reach a top speed of 308 km/h.
After the run, Nabil said it was “scary inside the vehicle” but maintained that it was a target that he had been trying to achieve for some time.
“After passing the 250 km/h mark my body started shaking,” he explained.
Driving over 300 km/h in a Golf 1 is a terrifying affair because VW built the Golf 1 to be a cheap, affordable family car meant to get from A to B. But the Golf 1 grew into a cult classic and is arguably the most popular car on South African roads today.
Ahmed and Nabil built the Golf 1 to go almost double the speed it was designed to go.
“There’s nothing more we can do with the car, like nothing more we can put into it but that said, it is still a 100% street legal car. It even has the full sound system and original dashboard and seats.
“We didn’t focus yet on the aerodynamics of the car because we didn’t really want to alter the shape of it,” Nabil explained.
The vehicle is fitted with a Motorsport South Africa [MSA] approved roll cage, which helps stabilise the car and increase safety levels in the event of a crash. The roll case and exhaust system were the only two features of the car done outside SpeedShop.
Now that Ahmed and Nabil have conquered the goal of 300 km/h over the 800m and 250 km/h over the quartermile, the team believe there is more work to be done to enter the next level.
Entering a new bracket will depend, to an extent, on ‘gutting’ the car, which requires the team to remove anything that isn’t contributing to faster times, like glass windows, standard seats, the dashboard, door pads and more.
In most drag spec vehicles, car builders remove the standard glass windows and opt for plexiglass, which is a lighter.
The normal body fenders, which are metal, are sometimes also removed and replaced with fibreglass parts to decrease weight even further.
“I think aerodynamics is something we need to pay attention to going forward. The car doesn’t have any aero assistance. It still has a normal undercarriage, no flat bottom so no air flow direction.
“A friend of mine who mentors Nabil said that we should try to achieve a 320 km/h pass over the 800 metre mark, so that is our new goal. But we have a lot of work to do before we get there,” Ahmed said.
To the outside eye, especially those into the car scene, Ahmed and Nabil may seem to have it all but that is not the case.
Showing off and being boastful about their Golf 1 is something Ahmed has tried to teach Nabil to stray away from, as it does not coincide with his Islamic beliefs.
Repeatability and reliability is what Ahmed prides himself on, as a businessman, father, husband and uncle to his nieces. Besides that, it’s his steadfast faith in the Almighty’s Qadar that has kept Nabil and himself humble, hard working and at the top of their game.
While the world may see a uber-cool race car, the work that goes into building a car on such a level requires enormous amounts of time and patience.
It isn’t all fun and games, especially with Ahmed being in his sixties and nearing retirement, Nabil is most likely to succeed as head of the family business. But the pressure of feeding many families is a heavy burden to carry.
“I don’t think anyone is ever prepared to lead, it is something that you have to grow into. Nabil is the future of this business. He decided not to go to university and stay here because of continuity, so he will have to face that responsibility down the line,” Ahmed concluded.
JEHRAN NAIDOO/AUTO RUSH