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In 1964, when California-style surf rock songs about hot cars were at their peak in popularity, Ronny & the Daytonas released “G.T.O.“, a lively ode to the Pontiac musclecar that became a #1 hit. Twenty years later, Volkswagen “translated” the song into German for a spot advertising the Mk. I GTI:

That’s about as much good clean fun as you can have in thirty seconds, and it tells you all you need to know about the GTI: it’s meant to be played with.

The dramatically-lit synchronized hoonery–door-handle-to-door-handle speed runs, drifting around racetrack corners, spectacular leaps over the crest of a hill–is perfectly matched to the California surf-rock soundtrack. California surf-rock car songs are silly to begin with (unless you have severe Car Lust, in which case car songs are autobiographical, as it were)–a California surf-rock car song with German lyrics takes “silly” to a whole new level. The comic capper is the lawyerly disclaimer (”Local speed laws must be
obeyed. Do not attempt these maneuvers.”) prominently superimposed over
all this reckless abandon. No irony there, no-siree Bob, none whatsoever.

Ever since I first saw this commercial in 1984, that surf-rock song has piqued my curiosity.  It’s obviously not a direct translation of the original Ronny & the Daytonas lyrics, which are about a V-8 musclecar (”Three dueces and a four-speed/And a three-eighty-nine.”), not a 4-cylinder hot hatchback.

Despite the best efforts of one of my finer teachers, Herr Professor Eugene Weibel, my limited proficiency with high-school German did not survive long past my high school graduation,. This made figuring out the lyrics kind of tough for me. I remembered that kleine is German for “little”–so I knew that the first line is “little GTI” (in place of “little GTO”). I also remembered enough to recognize that the letters “G-T-I” were being deliberately mis-pronounced to make them recognizable to English speakers: Germans would say “gay-tay-eeh“ instead of “gee-tee-eye.”

However, we here at Car Lust are nothing if not obsessive determined. With the gracious help of some friends who are better at the language than I ever was (including an actual German) and a YouTube commenter, I can give you a workable translation of the song (at least those lines that aren’t buried under the voiceover). 

• The first three lines are:  “Little GTI/You’re so much fun/I love to drive you.”
• According to the YouTube commenter, the fourth line (where the voiceover comes in) translates as “To the max” and the lines under the voiceover are “Listen how he starts/Put in the key.” My German-speaking friends can’t quite make this part out, but I’m pretty sure I hear the German noun Schlüssel, which means “key,” so I’m going with it.
• At the end, after the pitchman says “Introducing the 1984 . . . ” the singers come in with “Ready to start/How it hums/How it zooms/GTI”

All this linguistics has me in the mood for some fuel-injected hoonery of my own. My GTI is sitting in the driveway, waiting patiently. I think I’ll go turn it on, wind it up, blow it out, GTI.

–Cookie the Dog’s Owner