quattro Magazine Feature: Project Phoenix  

[by: William Hoey]

Photos: Crobb Media and Yuyin Garcia

Before the track records, before the sponsorships, before the 1,300-horsepower dyno sheets and international tuning calls, there was a kid in Revere, Massachusetts waiting for headlights.

Fernando Gaviria didn’t grow up dreaming about trophies. He grew up waiting for his father to come home from the city so he could move the car from the driveway into the garage. He was eight years old, barely tall enough to see over the steering wheel, but that short crawl into the garage felt monumental. It wasn’t a chore. It was a ceremony. On weekends, he washed his father’s car carefully and without being asked, knowing that clean paint earned trust and trust sometimes earned keys. That’s where it began — not at a racetrack or on a dyno, but in the family driveway.

At age sixteen he bought his first car, a ’92 Honda Accord. It wasn’t fast, but it was freedom, and freedom turns curiosity into experimentation. Soon after, came a Mk4 Jetta, his first real taste of modification: K04 turbo, Neuspeed chip tune, the sudden shove of boost transforming an ordinary car into something sharper and more alive. That first surge changed him. Once you feel a car transform under pressure, stock never quite satisfies again.

A Mk6 GTI followed, his first new car. At the time, running a 12.9-second quarter mile felt legitimately quick. The lines between street and strip were blurred, and like many young enthusiasts coming up in the underground scene, Fernando chased numbers wherever he could find space. He learned through trial, error, and consequence. A Mk3 VR6 GTI came next, then two R32s, then a Mk7 Golf R built to full Unitronic Stage 2+ specification. Each car was louder, faster, more committed than the last. The underground world he grew within wasn’t polished or glamorous. It was late nights, empty stretches of road, whispered matchups, and the quiet understanding that pushing limits meant accepting risk.

In 2018, he sold one of the R32s and purchased an RS 3 on Cape Cod. That purchase marked a shift. The DAZA 2.5-liter five-cylinder wasn’t just another engine; it was serious potential disguised as a compact sedan. Fernando began working with Integrated Engineering on a Stage 2 setup, but restraint has never been his defining trait. Wanting more headroom, he transitioned to Unitronic and helped develop software for a hybrid turbo configuration, even bringing the car to Canada as testing evolved. The RS 3 eventually ran a 9.5-second quarter mile at ATCO Dragway in New Jersey — on a stock high-pressure fuel pump and stock map sensors. It was bold, aggressive, and undeniably on borrowed time.

The borrowed time ran out in 2019 when the car went into Audi Natick in Massachusetts for an oil pan leak. Oscar Augusto was the technician who found metal in the pan. Oscar’s path into the automotive world had started with frustration rather than speed. He once owned a Jetta no one could properly diagnose the leak, so he decided to learn the trade himself. After attending automotive school, vocational training, years at Volkswagen in Wellesley, a stint at Toyota, and eventually Audi Natick shaped his foundation. He wasn’t chasing quarter-mile glory, he was chasing mechanical truth. When he discovered metal in Fernando’s oil pan, he could have simply recommended a rebuild and moved on. Instead, he suggested pulling the engine locally and shipping only the long block, staying involved in the process and understanding exactly what failed. That suggestion built trust and, ultimately, partnership.

The first built motor was reinstalled and unfortunately, a few months later, metal shavings in the oil had returned. It was rebuilt again. During this series of unfortunate events, Fernando flew to Chicago to purchase a Daytona Gray TT RS and drove it home, later swapping the rebuilt RS 3 engine into the new chassis. The TT RS escalated quickly: forged internals, full bolt-ons, Unitronic’s 850S turbo kit, then Syvecs engine management for more granular control. In November 2021, the car ran an 8.7, the fastest recorded pass on that turbo configuration at the event. The celebration was short-lived. A cracked cylinder liner ended the weekend. Within eighteen months, three engines had come and gone.

For many, that would have been the logical stopping point. For Fernando Gaviria and Oscar Augusto, it was the point where ownership deepened. By March 2022, the engine was sleeved at FFE, and Oscar made a quiet decision that shifted the trajectory of the project: they would take on more of the engine-work themselves. If parts were going to fail, they would understand why. The underground racer was becoming a builder.

To continue reading this story and more, click here to access the Q2_2026 digital issue of quattro Magazine. [Note: you must be logged in to your membership account to view]