Meet the crazy Golf with altitude

Golf has been an obsession for Jim Morris since his teens. Not the historic long-winded ball sport, but Volkswagen’s best-seller, whose iconic GTI started the hot hatch genre. Morris’s father, 1960s Lotus Cortina to Porsche racer John, piloted one to fourth overall in the 1981 British Saloon Car Championship, before selling it to genial Demon Tweeks founder Alan Minshaw.

Jim, 57, proudly owns the family heirloom today, a friend having found it on a Club GTI forum more than three decades after its departure. 

“He called to say he’d found it in Madrid and within three days I was out there buying it,” says the Coventry native, who made his racing debut in the popular Production Saloon series of the early 1990s – naturally in a Golf GTI, albeit a Mk2.

“It had been converted to left-hand drive, but on lifting the bonnet I recognised some of the unique nuances immediately.”

Now managing director of global market leader Lifeline Fire & Safety Systems – evolved from the struggling Isle of Wight minnow taken over in 1994 – it forms the nucleus of Morris’s expanding group of motorsport companies reflecting its ‘Champions of Safety’ ethos and tagline.

“We supply innovative customised lightweight fire suppressants to every F1 team, and supply the World Rally Championship, the BTCC and Australian Supercars through most FIA-sanctioned single-seater categories to club motorsport,” he says. Despite his workaholic lifestyle, Morris is more into Golf than ever. 

Outrageous rear aero package includes 2.1-metre wide dual-plane wing and massive underbody venturi

Photo by: Joy Richings

Immaculately restored back to right-hand drive, his dad’s car – a shrill frontrunner at Goodwood Members’ Meetings for a decade, with nine-time Le Mans victor Tom Kristensen and BTCC veteran Mat Jackson its latest alumni – inspired Morris’s latest project, three years in the planning.

Sitting innocently behind its namesake, the fire-breathing monster in which he will tackle Pikes Peak, the USA’s most famous hillclimb, on 21 June, the Mark 1 is no shrinking violet. Indeed, it’s a poignant reminder of how the world was when the first of the lightweight three-wheeling hatchbacks with agile chassis and limpet-like roadholding rolled out of VW’s Wolfsburg factory in 1976. Yes, 50 years ago, when Jim was eight. 

The charismatic German game-changer looks tiny in comparison to its Mk7 descendant on which the Pikes Peak racer is loosely based. “It started out as a lightly damaged 2013 Golf Blue Motion, bought from breakers Copart,” explains Morris at its launch, before Motorsport Industry Association luminaries and guests, at Stoneleigh HQ.

“It started out as a lightly damaged 2013 Golf Blue Motion. There’s not much left of it. Perhaps only the door handles and rear lights are original” Jim Morris

“Unloaded into a trailer with a forklift, I drove it into the workshop at Grove Motorsport [part of the Lifeline group, which includes racing fuel and oil distributor Old Hall Performance, SPA Design – Jim’s first employer, where he worked alongside Bob Simpson – and Trident Racing Supplies], but there’s not much left of it. Perhaps only the door handles and rear lights are original.”

Standing between his team’s steroidal creation and the beloved family GTI, Morris’s obsession for detail runs to mimicking his dad’s #44 Morris Vulcan and Tri-ang livery. While respecting history, he is quick to debunk the popular myth that John’s sponsor was a family concern. The Solihull company, which manufactured 3500 pairs of MV Flyer roller skates per day in the 1970s, was owned by the unrelated Derek Morris, a successful powerboat racer. 

Festooned with aerodynamic aids – the 2.1-metre wide dual-plane wing overhanging the Pikes Peak Golf’s tailgate, which still opens, and massive underbody venturi described in some quarters as a double-width IKEA flat-packed Billy bookcase reimagined in robust carbon fibre – you need imagination to see the caricature’s roots.

Two-litre turbocharged engine was originally a Swindon TOCA unit and has been upgraded to produce 500bhp

Photo by: Joy Richings

Yet, a Golf it certainly is, in spirit, embodying the complementary expertise of a team of brilliant career motorsport engineers hand-picked by Morris, then given free rein to realise his dream.

Crew chief Ian Moore, from Holywood outside Belfast – birthplace of John Crossle’s marque – is a highly respected rally engineer, having worked for Mazda in Belgium, Mitsubishi Ralliart and Prodrive. Based for the past decade in North Carolina, in the USA’s NASCAR belt, Moore led the build.

Fabled BTCC fabricator Willie Poole crafted chassis GMS 01’s comprehensive cockpit safety cell, an evolution of his touring car ROPS cage, and subframes that carry the suspension. 

Australian Motec management wizard Dave Rowe of Electronic Performance Systems – veteran of six Pikes Peak assaults – has masterminded the ECU system to keep the engine on song by controlling boost throughout the 4720ft (1440m) elevation change that characterises the ‘Race to the Clouds’.

And veteran F1 aerodynamicist John Iley designed the accoutrements to keep the missile on the ground, from rigid and well-anchored full-width carbon fibre nose splitter to vast rear diffuser. “At its lowest setting [angle of attack], the wing makes 2000kg of downforce at 100mph,” notes Morris.

Bespoke, and bonkers, this Golf is like no other. Weighing in at 1170kg with its double-skinned floor, it is heavy – but needs to be to ensure ultimate rigidity. If peeled from its epidermis, the car could be driven in skeleton form.

Iley (second left), Morris (next), Moore and Poole (second right) all played their parts

Photo by: Joy Richings

The two-litre turbocharged engine, originally a Swindon TOCA unit, was upgraded to make 500bhp and now features dual fuel injectors, their delivery informed and optimised by GPS to maintain peak performance as the air gets thinner during the climb, while restricting the turbo’s spin speed to 90% of maximum. A six-speed sequential Xtrac gearbox, acquired second-hand and rebuilt, transmits the power.

The adjustable double-wishbone front suspension’s horizontal spring/damper units are push-rod actuated, with MCS shocks. Heating the front tyres is academic; building confidence-inspiring temperature into the rears is a greater challenge, though.

Bosch ABS augmented Alcon six-(front) and four-pot (rear) brake callipers bite ventilated discs to balance momentum and stop the car. Those rotors fill Dynamics wheels shod with Goodyears.

“The event is deliciously raw. The atmosphere in the paddock is like Mallory Park first thing on a Sunday morning. Eerily quiet, then all hell breaks loose” Jim Morris

Having read about Pikes Peak in Autosport, Morris was captivated from his initiation pilgrimage in 2023. “Within 10 minutes I decided I had to do the last truly international motorsport where everyone competes on equal terms,” he states.

“With my lifelong VW connection, it had to be in a Golf. Despite its status, the event is deliciously raw. The atmosphere in the paddock is like Mallory Park first thing on a Sunday morning. Eerily quiet, then all hell breaks loose. When the gates open at 0200 on race day, huge crowds flock to line the course.”

Harnessed into his Racetech seat, with DC Electronics power steering to ameliorate the physical exertion, Morris will not notice the 70,000-80,000 people on the mountainside.

John Morris was a British Saloon Car Championship regular in a VW Golf

Photo by: LAT/Getty Images

He is chasing the front-wheel-drive record – 10m48.094s set by American Nick Robinson in an Acura TLX in 2018 – but, following just 100 miles of running over two days at Blyton Park (trialling full aero “which made an enormous difference” on 8 April, a week before shipping) with a brief Silverstone run in between, he is confident in both team and car.

“We believe it’s capable of getting close to 10 minutes,” says Morris, upbeat.

Having learned the course’s layout on an Assetto Corsa sim, Morris has sought first-hand advice from expat Norfolk engineer Robin Shute, a four-time winner, and current outright record holder Romain Dumas, who tore up the course in a staggering 7m57.148s at the wheel of VW’s electric I.D. R in 2018. The real tests start on 2 June, the first of three successive days to acclimatise to the lower, middle and upper sections respectively.

The logistics of transporting the Golf and spares 4000 miles from Portsmouth to Port Houston are staggering, from complicated protocols and preparatory paperwork to delivery. Boarded on 14 April, the container ship had yet to dock at the Texan port at the time of writing, a month before race day. Once ashore it will be trucked the last 1000 miles to Colorado Springs, then the ballsy business begins.

“It’s a year later than planned, for various reasons, but none of this would have been possible without the enthusiasm and incredible technical back-up received from suppliers and the brands Lifeline represents worldwide,” adds Morris.

“I’m so grateful to them, and for the encouragement of Lifeline USA’s James Clay, our distributor since 2015.”

The 2013 Golf arrives via forklift ready for overhaul; it’s reckoned only the door handles and rear lights are retained unchanged

The stars that have risen to the Pikes Peak challenge

The creation of Spencer Penrose, who widened the cart track to the summit of Pikes Peak, west of Colorado Springs in the Rocky Mountains, the hillclimb was inaugurated in 1916. The USA’s second-oldest continuously run motorsport event, it is pre-dated by the Indianapolis 500 race of which Ray Harroun (Marmon Wasp) was the first winner in 1911.

Originally a dirt road – it was only fully paved in 2012 – the ‘Race to the Clouds’ has been the hallowed stamping ground of some of America’s racing dynasties. None has achieved more than the Unser family – Louis, his nephews Bobby and Al and their sons Robby and Al Jr – with 26 outright wins between them spanning 70 years from 1934-2004. After an 18-year gap, Bobby’s 10th win in 1986 trumped Louis’s nine!

More recently, Californian-domiciled Briton Robin Shute won four times in five years from 2019

European rally legends Michele Mouton and Walter Rohrl (Audi Quattros) and Ari Vatanen (Peugeot 405 T16) triumphed in the 1980s. Asphalt sections upped the pace when New Zealander Rod Millen, Japan’s Nobuhiro Tajima and Frenchmen Sebastien Loeb and Romain Dumas ruled the roost.

More recently, Californian-domiciled Briton Robin Shute won four times in five years from 2019. Eleven-time European hillclimb champion Simone Faggioli topped the timesheets last year in a Norma-based Nova NP01 prototype.

This article is one of many in the monthly Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the July 2026 issue and subscribe today. 

Unser family achieved 26 Pikes Peak wins – here’s 10-time victor Bobby in 1974

Photo by: Bettmann/Getty Images