A black Volkswagen Santana 2000 1.8 GSi, seen on the road in the Chinese capital Beijing. The old Volkswagen was in a reasonable shape, but clearly in need of some work and love.
The Volkswagen Santana 2000 was manufactured from 1995 until 2003. It was based on the Brazilian Santana (Volkswagen do Brasil) but it had a longer wheelbase for more space in the back. The Santana 2000 was made in China by the Shanghai-Volkswagen joint venture.
The 1.8 GSi was a sporty variant of the Santana 2000, fitted with black bumpers and factory-standard multispoke alloys. The car we have here is an early example. Two months ago we saw a later-standard car.
When ABS was still a thing…
The 2000 1.8 GSi was powered by a 1.8 liter petrol engine with 99 hp and 155 Nm, mated to a five-speed manual gearbox. This was exactly two horses and zero Nm more than the standard car.
The 2000 1.8 GSi was made from 1997 until 2002. Price always hovered around the 160.000 yuan mark; about 10.000 more than the standard Santana. So, that’s 5000 yuan for each extra horse. Not a bad deal…
And it got those super cool wheels.
No special thingies inside for the GSi; no badges or racy trim. Typical Volkswagen. Happily, the interior of this car is as reasonable as the exterior. Faux-leather seats and the radio-cassette player are original.
The Santana 2000 was a large and spacious car, with lots of room for the legs in the back. Size: 4600/1700/1423, and wheelbase was 2656. It was very popular with taxi drivers, but they usually drove one of the many special taxi-models, not the high end GSi.
License plate is as old as the car and has a very rare 33777 sequence.
The characters write Shanghai-Dazhong, or Shanghai-Volkswagen.
Great car. Let’s hop someone fixes her up. For more about the Volkswagen Santana in China see this article.
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