Welcome to the second part of my Vengaworld: Return to the Underground coverage. In part 1 (which you can read about here: https://motorsportformentalhealth.com/2026/04/17/vengaworld-return-to-the-underground-japanese-cars-of-the-show/) we covered the Japanese cars of the show. Today we will be looking at the Europeans!
Now, as I mentioned in part 1, I do have to apologise for the picture quality. When I was there the sun was setting and the weird lighting messed with my photos more than I was expecting. For the next one I’ll stay long after the sun has set for better pics!
Lets start with BMW and this lovely 2002ti!
Following the 2002 was the E21 3-Series. This was followed by the E30:
Then came the E36. These are getting collectible now but they were really popular drift cars when I was younger. There were a lot of nice examples here. They still have a pretty big following!
Then came the E46. Again this is a very popular car in grassroots drifting here in the U.K.
This E46 cabriolet was probably my favourite car of the show. It was really tastefully done!
The E24 6-Series is my favourite BMW. They’re such a good looking car!
A lovely F87 M2. I really liked the colour coded grill. This might be a common modification in the modern BMW world but I’ve genuinely never seen it before. The whole car is very tastefully done.
G90 M5. I’ve only seen a couple modified – literally this one and another at SEMA last year. Both wore their modifications really nicely.
I’m not sure why though but this generation 5 Series looks enormous compared to it’s predecessor. It’s not much bigger at all though. Maybe it has something to do with the shape of the grills? They look very large and imposing!
Moving over to Mercedes now, and a stacked headlight Benz is still on my automotive bucket list. A stock one though. They look fantastic lowered don’t get me wrong, but I think Mercedes really got it right from the factory with this era car!
R129 SL. I love the 5 spoke Penta style alloys.
C126 SEC. Bruno Sacco’s best design in my opinion!
Porsche 987 Boxster/Cayman. Underrated little cars in their standard guise and incredible with a widebody! This really suits the extended arches!
A cool little 924.
964 generation 911.
A lovely track focused 997.
I’m not too up to speed on classic Audis. It’s a smart looking thing!
A Williams Clio. These were built to celebrate the partnership between Renault and the Williams Formula 1 team.
A Mk2 Opel (Not a Vauxhall, it’s left hand drive) Astra GTE. I don’t think the GTE was ever done in an estate shell from factory which makes this a bit of a ‘what if’. Please correct me if I’m wrong though!
The iconic Sierra Cosworth.
A beautiful little Alfa-Romeo 1600 GT Junior.
A VW Scirocco. This gen Scirocco is my favourite of the VW group classics.
Marlboro liveried Golf:
A VW Type 181 ‘Thing’. These are based loosely on the VW Beetle and were originally built as a stand in for the West German military to use until NATO’s Europa Jeep could be built. The Europa Jeep was eventually cancelled, so these became a bit of a Cold War icon.
There were limited civilian sales as VW thought there was a market for them as dune buggies, built off of VW Beetles, became popular in the US and Western Europe (along with similar cars like the Mini Moke) but they never really took off.
Thanks for reading! That concludes my coverage of Vengaworld: Return to the Underground. If you’d like to see what I get up to next, please subscribe to the blog via email (from the box at the bottom of the page).
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By Richard Francis.
