A lot of bad things happened in fashion way back in 1974. Flares. Big hair. Platforms. Things that make you cut up photographs and douse them in period four-star leaded petrol. But it wasn't all bad. There was some great music. Nobody worried that the planet was melting.

Some incandescent little sparks in Wolfsburg invented the hot hatch with the original Golf GTI. And somewhere in a special little corner, Giugiaro and VW brought us the first version of the Volkswagen Scirocco; a wedge of pure genius.

Fast-forward out of the fug of cheap hairspray, and here we are 34 years later. The Scirocco is back in its latest iteration: remixed, refreshed and ready to rumble.

First up, a very brief history lesson. OK, so it may have been overshadowed by the hot Golf that launched the same year, but the original Scirocco certainly got you noticed. It didn't look anything like a stamped-on Golf three-door and managed to convey an air of individuality that meant it kept on keeping on until 1981, when it was replaced by the mark II.

It was 1993 before the second version died after a raft of specials, and the success of the shape was such that there's still a healthy used appetite for the odd late-model GTX or 'Storm' special edition...

Thankfully, the essential recipe remains the same for the '08 revival; a coupe-esque shape with a practical hatch and the same mechanical organs as the Golf range, making for easy upkeep behind the rakish looks.

The past undoubtedly informs the present with the new car, and this Scirocco looks defiantly different to anything on the current Golf (mk V) radar, even though the oily bits are shared. More intriguingly, there are elements of the design of the next-generation Golf (mk VI) poking through that front-end, so what appears radical today might not look so outré in a couple of years as we begin to adjust to the Golf's new look.

Still, the new design tries hard to be individual. Initially at least, it works. The design is the work of Klaus Bischoff, Chief Designer at VW and obviously has quite a lot to do with the Iroc Concept from a couple of years ago, which means that it is immediately appealing and easily accessible, though it has lost the consistently aggressive angles and eye-watering paintjob, as well as the super-stumpy stance of the show-stand version.

It's got a wide, flat face that helps hunker the car into the floor, the deep front airdams and thin grille also sucking the car downward. One of the tricks that seems so simple and yet makes such a difference is that the VW roundel has migrated from its place inside the grille and scuttled up onto the bonnet. Take a look - it seems to clean up the face of the car.