A few weeks back, while I was finding rally-ized Lancias on the street and buying vintage racing decals in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, I crossed the Moselle River into Germany to get lunch.
Actually, the plan had been to go to Thionville, France, but they were busy having riots there. Trier, Germany, has some impressive Roman ruins and I figured I'd find some interesting Europe-only vehicles on the street there.
Strangely, Karl Marx references were everywhere, including in the gift shop at Trier's tourist center. Trier is about as far from the former East Germany as you can get and still be in Germany, and the place is proudly capitalist. Why does the inventor of communism get such interest there?
It turns out that Marx was born in this house in one of Germany's oldest cities, just across the river from Luxembourg. Just down the street, I found…
…a genuine Joker Edition Mk3 Volkswagen Golf!
Volkswagen went nuts with special-edition Mk3 Golfs during the 1990s. If you lived in Germany, you could get a Pink Floyd Golf, a New Orleans Golf, a Rolling Stones Golf, and many others. For 1997 and 1998, there was the Joker Edition Golf.
As Herr Marx would have said, "Get in, loser, we're seizing the means of production!"
From what I can tell, these special-edition Mk3 Golfs were ordinary except for special upholstery and badging.
Apparently, the Joker Edition Golf was not intended as a reference to any of the Batman movies. Jack Nicholson's Joker was in 1989, and Heath Ledger's Joker of The Dark Knight didn't show up until 2008.
The Golf Joker was just cheap and jokey.
If you wanted to dance with the cool kids in 1997, you needed to be part of Generation Golf.
