If turbos are too inefficient, and natural aspiration too peaky, what hope do you have of extracting more performance? Easy: a supercharger. Volkswagen’s Golf GTI was a blank canvas for tuners, drivers and the upwardly mobile – a point not lost on Wolfsburg, which began experimenting with forced induction engines in the ’80s as a means of marrying performance and fuel economy.
The ‘G-Lader’ (or ‘G-Supercharger’), so-called owing to the shape of its spiral ‘scrolls’, was Volkswagen’s way of moving the game on. Smaller, more efficient, and less power hungry than other ‘blowers’, it moved the Golf GTI, then in Mk2 guise, into a newer market. It was designated ‘G60’ owing to the depth of the spirals used in the G-Lader – a smaller unit, with smaller spirals, called ‘G40’,…
