Nostalgia: according to one dictionary, it’s ‘a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for a return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition’.
However you define it, there’s no denying there’s a lot of it about these days, from politicians selling us bucolic visions of the past to music and fashion industries that, at the moment at least, appear to be knee-deep in the 1990s.
Yet nowhere is the feeling more pervasive than the automotive sector, where the urgency of the climate crisis and the looming all-in adoption of electric cars is making many buyers keen to recapture motoring memories that were filled with a greater sense of freedom and environmental innocence, when hydrocarbons were happily hurled about, the road ahead was always open and the future always seemed brighter.
You can see its effect in the steadily rising values of 1980s and 1990s ‘modern classics’, but its influence is most obvious in the skyrocketing popularity of the ‘restomod’.
These restored but tweaked and modified machines aim to infuse the retro appeal of their original subjects with a sheen of modernity that should make them go, stop and steer like a much newer machine – because, let’s face it, on the whole old cars tend to be dynamically, um, suboptimal.
However, there’s no escaping the fact that many of these cars are aimed at clientele with considerable means, with cars such as the Singer DLS Turbo perhaps best highlighting this excess-all-areas approach to conspicuous consumption.
But, between the Reebok Hyundai i20N and brogues-on-steriods Tolman 205 GTI, which is best? Read on to find out...
Introducing the Tolman 205 GTI and Hyundai i20N
Quick links: Design - Powertrains - Interior - Driving dynamics - Verdict - Specs
If Singer isn't for you, the old and new can still be melded in a less-than-ostentatious way, which brings us to the door of Tolman Engineering, on a small industrial estate just outside Rugby in Warwickshire.
Join the debate
Add your comment
I remember when there wasn't nostalgia, ahhh, those were the days :-p
Perfect exmple of how good a 3-door hot hatch looks compared to the more frumpy, family car look of a 5-door, which relies so much on its "aggressive" additions.
Either build a restomod as was,or as here, stick an up to date chassis and ancillaries underneath the old body, whatever you choose doesn't matter.
I think it's the same with the GTi, it looks more aggressive/assertive than the standard car with its subtle body kit/addenda.
They are both using the same hot hatch tropes to make them stand out as the sporty version, but I agree 3 door cars do look good, but on the i20, seeing as they don't do a 3 door at all, I am not bothered by the 5 door, I think the car still looks great.
205s are very pretty cars though, and still look great.
But I don't think that you can ever get away from the fact that the proportions of a 3-door are always more stylish and 'sporty' than those of a 5-door, to my eyes anyway. Whilst ever the front doors are shorter and the B-pillar further forward it will always be the case.
A 150kW 205 does 240km/h? Really? Seems optimistic to me. I love it but would prefer a more reworked interior with modern features such as infotainment etc, and definitely should be a six speed.