We extreme detail a Golf R32... just to give it away

As you’ve probably noticed, we love nothing more here at Auto Finesse than getting stuck right into a big detail… except of course, having the opportunity to give back to our you, our loyal customers. So, that’s how this particular project was conceived – and how it turned out to be a lesson in detailing to the absolute extreme.

You see, early in the year we hatched a plan to perform one of the biggest details to ever hit our bay. We’re talking about stripping off a whole load of parts and using our top detailing products to perform the most extreme cleaning, wet sanding the paint, a full multi-stage paint correction, hard wax protection, the works. And then, we thought why not do that and then give the car away - that’d be a sweet way to kick off the show season, right?

We hit on a winning formula here, but what car to choose? Obviously, we needed something super-slick and kinda classic, but it also had to be a car that can be driven daily. Most importantly though, it just had to be something with proper legendary status. There’s no surprises that we love our VWs here – so what better than the daddy of all Mk4 Golfs? The legendary R32.

Fully loaded with a 240bhp 3.2 VR6 engine, and a whole load of extras making it immediately distinguishable from the other Mk4s of the era, we remember these hitting the streets brand-spanking-new in the 2000s, but nowadays the Mk4 R32 has become a bona fide modern classic. How time flies, eh?

But of course, this is Auto Finesse. So, we just couldn’t just track down and give away a legendary motor like this without cracking on with a full detail… and obviously that’s exactly where it got a little out of hand.

Follow along with the video below and see how we took this detail to the next level… and then far beyond!

Our main focus may have been all about keeping the car original and restoring it to way beyond factory condition but, of course, there’s no harm in a couple of upgrades, right?

So, in addition to all the extreme cleaning, wet sanding, polishing and protection, we added just a couple of subtle extras… or what we more accurately refer to as ‘absolute essentials’.

We’ve brought down the altitude significantly with a set of BC Racing coilovers, got our hands on a full set of brand-new badges and given those brake calipers a new lease of life with a little elbow grease and high temperature paint. Just a couple of touches that not only add to the overall effect but help to push this car to the next level.

Obviously, our 15-minute video contains most of the highlights but in reality, this detail took well over a week of long days and nights for the team. But then again, while that’s quite the investment in products and manpower, it’s not too often we get to take detailing… well, this far beyond actual detailing.

All in all, we think you’ll agree that the results speak for themselves here…

So, with arguably the best R32 Golf in Europe sitting in the bay, how would we give this one away? The answer is simple – use a specialist computer program to pick a random customer from the thousands of orders we received over February. Everyone who ordered any product from our online store was automatically put into the draw and, at the end of the month, we hit the button to find out who gets to take the R32 home.

As it turns out the winner was ticket no.2607 held by a car and detailing enthusiast called Andrew Bailey… suffice to say he was a little surprised to find out he was the new owner of a ‘way-beyond-mint’ VW modern classic. A few days later we invited Andrew to the AF HQ to pick up the car, fill the boot with a whole load of top detailing products, and then we sent him on his way with our Golf R32 – smiles all round.

We hope you enjoy the car Andrew… we just know you will. You’re certainly not going to find a cleaner one out there.