The Scirocco in all its orangey glory
© JB_Photo – John Von Blankenfelds
Motoring

Behind the build: Josh Spratt’s R32-engined Volkswagen Scirocco

We look at how this 3.2-litre V6-engined V-Dub came to life.
Written by Jordan Clarke
4 min readPublished on
A few weekends ago, Ultimate Dubs at the Telford International Centre marked the start of the UK show season. It’s one of the UK’s busiest shows, and I made it my mission this year to find the ‘Most Modified’ car at the event. I was basically looking for something recently built and which caught my eye more than anything else.
Josh Spratt’s outrageously orange 3.2-litre V6 Volkswagen Scirocco is what I found. I spoke to Josh to find out how this naughty looking beast came into being…
So Josh, I know your car used to be purple. What made you change it to how it is now?
It all kind of came from the engine swap. When it was purple it looked clean and like a typical show car but I’d ran out of things to do, to be honest. Once I decided it was going to have an engine swap, I wanted it to look more aggressive to match. I was happy with the purple but overall I think the new look beats everything else I’ve done. I couldn’t be happier with it.
The car got new 3.2-litre heart

The car got new 3.2-litre heart

© Josh Spratt

Where did you get your inspiration from?
It’s hard to say really. The whole idea was to kind of make it look aggressive but OEM [original equipment manufacturer]. I’ve always loved the R400 MK7 Golfs and wanted to do my own twist on a Scirocco with the same hardcore elements. That’s why I opted for the OEM-looking wider arches up front to match the huge rears and the R400-style rear bumper trims. There’s a lot of subtle mods that may go unnoticed, but that’s kind of the point. I wanted it to look like something VW may have produced.
What are the specs on the car?
It’s got a pretty standard R32 engine for now, but I want to turbo/supercharge it at some point. It’s currently got SAI [secondary air injection] delete and an intake on it, with de-cat exhaust and straight pipes from there back. Wheels are 19x10J front and 19x11J rear, but I want to run a square 11” set-up in the near future.
Some Porsche Recaro seats add to the racy feel

Some Porsche Recaro seats add to the racy feel

© Josh Spratt

Talk us through the modifications the car went through.
Firstly, I literally ripped the car apart to a bare shell. I then carried out a bare metal respray, full new interior, new engine including all new wiring, new wheels that were then rebuilt and painted. I basically changed everything on and in the car.
Did you do the work yourself or did a garage help?
Ninety-five per cent of the work was done in my unit with the help of my mates; I can’t take all the credit because without them it would still undeniably be in pieces. The seat re-trim was outsourced to a company near me and KingCarbon did all the carbon parts on the car. Other than that, I painted the car myself, built the wheels, did the air [suspension] install and trimmed a lot of the interior, as well as putting the engine in and wiring it all up with my mate Jack. All in all, it’s pretty much a home build – and shout out to all my mates who made it possible!
The car want down to the bare shell

The car want down to the bare shell

© Josh Spratt

What’s your favourite thing about the car?
Modification-wise, it’s definitely the engine. But overall the whole nature of the build. The fact that it was built in a dusty unit with the help of a few mates and a lot of pizza! There are a lot more guys out there who do the same kind of builds and perhaps don’t get the recognition they deserve, so to get the car done to the level it’s at with next to no outside help feels good.
It was all hands on deck

It was all hands on deck

© Josh Spratt

And what was the most challenging modification to carry out?
Again, it’s got to be the engine. When we were researching, there were no English versions of the swap I wanted to do and I think only one in Germany in a VW Eos. There was an R32-engined Scirocco in Canada but it was built by a company and we weren’t very hopeful they’d share their information.
We tried using the donor car loom at first, but my friend Jack convinced me to buy a full VW MK5 Golf R32 loom and we went from there. He plumbed a lot of the wiring in while I was busy with other stuff. It was definitely an interesting task, but once we broke it down into sections, it wasn’t too bad.
Check out more images of Josh's awesome build in the gallery below…