Spotlight: Colin McCarty's Volkswagen MK7.5 GTI

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Welcome to Spotlight. Our goal is to feature customers vehicles and shine a spotlight on their build. We are always excited to see where our products end up and how they are being used. Did you build a show car? A drift car? A time attack car? Is it bagged or static? You get to tell your story in the spotlight.

Today we are featuring Colin and his 2018 VW GTI.

Seibon: Hey Colin! Tell us a little about yourself and what you do for a living.

Colin: My name is Colin McCarty and I'm an Entrepreneur, Marketing Director for WRTeknica, Co-Owner of Imola Media, & General Manager for 305Forged Wheels USA.

Seibon: Sounds like you got a pretty busy schedule. Can you give us the story on your car and why you bought it?

Colin: I bought the car in 2018 to be a practical daily driver that was also fun. I needed something that could transport products and equipment, could serve as a film vehicle, and still be fun to drive on the weekends. After being approached by Seibon to use the car for some development of new products they asked if the car would be available to use at SEMA. Most cars that go to SEMA are all-out show cars, many never get seen again after the show or only very rarely at shows. I was determined to continue using my car as intended. So I still daily drive it, have driven it across country and back, and plan to track it after the COVID19 pandemic is over and tracks open back up.

Seibon: You mentioned driving the car cross country, can you tell us a little more about that?

Colin: I live in SoCal but am originally from eastern Pennsylvania. So every year I go back to see my family for the holiday season. Having a newly built SEMA car I thought it would be cool to drive it back instead of flying and in the process increase the car's exposure for my sponsors. I also wanted to challenge many of the car scene norms, ideas like show cars don't get used, you cant drive your fun car in the winter, and that cars need to be clean. I wanted the car to be as dirty as possible so when I got back to SoCal I could do a shoot and mimic the look of Le Mans cars after they have won the 24hrs of Le Mans and are photographed on the podium covered in dirt and grime. I respect and enjoy a clean car, and like my car to be clean, but I also am not afraid to use my car as intended to be driven and dirt can look cool.

Seibon: It's great to see you daily driving a SEMA car, not a lot of people can say that. Any future plans or goals for the GTI?

Colin: I plan on tracking the car occasionally, so I will be doing a few mods to improve the car's trackability such as upgraded oil coolers, upgraded brakes, and a few suspension components for better alignment capabilities.

Seibon: Track prep is always a good idea! Is there anyone you'd like to mention or thank?

Colin: I would like to thank the guys at VW accessories and VW motorsports for their support on the project. Tyler at Pacific German for helping with a lot of the decision making in the build and providing the Revo tune. My team at WRTeknica for getting the suspension aligned corner balanced and tuned. Seibon for being the catalyst that started the project. And really all the sponsors for wanting to work together on the car.