The VW Scirocco was as much of a game-changer in its class as was the Rabbit/Golf, upon which it was heavily based. Ultra-light, zippy, and eminently tossable, the Scirocco had very little genuine competition in terms of its remarkable dynamic qualities. It made American small sporty coupes like the Mustang II and Monza feel like clumsy draft horses in comparison. And the Japanese sporty coupes like the Celica couldn’t touch it either. The only thing that theoretically might have been able to approach it is if Honda had put their minds to building a genuine sporty FWD car. Instead, their first shot at it, the gen1 Prelude, missed the mark, leaving VW to romp in a segment of its own making for a number of years. Here’s Road and Track’s first look at it.
