Story by Johan Dillen • Photography by Dirk De Jager
It was wicked. It achieved four-wheel drive in an unusual way, with two engines packing a total of 650 horsepower. And it came very close to winning the 1987 Pikes Peak hillclimb. “I could see the guy waving the finish flags,” driver Jochi Kleint recalls of the biggest letdown of his career. Where did things go wrong for Kleint and the twin-engined Volkswagen Golf?
The man is too modest. He would roll out the red carpet for the big boys like Röhrl or Vatanen and fetch them their drinks. “Ah, you know, everybody always says ‘Walter is so fast.’” He says it with the gentlest of smiles, not a hint of jealousy showing.
But in his rallying career, Jochi Kleint, now 71 years old, was often right there with him. At the 1987 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, Kleint actually came very close to beating Walter Röhrl in a twin-engined Volkswagen Golf.
“At the halfway point I was…
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