While working on the Golf Giorgio Giugiaro had the fascinating idea of a sports coupé based on this short and manoeuvrable chassis and put it to Lotz the VW boss, however he turned it down. Nevertheless Giugiaro worked on a design which he submitted to Karmann. The project was also presented to the new VW chief Leiding, but he gave no financial support. Karmann financed it himself. They agreed to call it the Scirocco after a Saharan wind and to provide it with Golf I technology. The good chassis was developed at VW while the extremely modern engine came from Audi and had a cog-belt driven overhead camshaft as well as bucket tappet valve timing gear. The Scirocco had a kerb weight of only 800kg and therefore the 50, 70 and 85 bhp models were already capable of a respectable performance. The coupé came out 3 months before the Golf in April 1974. In June 1976 the Scirocco GTI appeared with an Audi 80 GTE engine that, thanks to its mechanical fuel injection system, developed 110 bhp and 185 km/h and reached 100 km/h in only 8.8 seconds - a brilliant performance for that time that was to make the GTI a legend. The 1978 model was given a facelift including wider bumpers and indicators that curved round the edges of the bodywork as well as a decorative frame round the radiator grille and a black B-post. Production of the Scirocco I came to an end in February 1981.