I guess I should start this by explaining why I have my GTi.
It all started 6 years ago when I was turning 21 and my folks wanted to know what I wanted for my 21st birthday present. "A MKI Golf GTi" was what I uttered, but this was well out of my folks budget so in the end I found a lovely MKII 8v Digifant Gti on an F plate in Tornado red. It was small bumpered with a lovely set of BBS alloys and I loved it. Over the next two years I spent loads on it fitting new alloys, big bumpers, Spax shocks and Eibach springs, ICE and buying a VR6 engine for it. Due to some over spirited driving I stacked it into a van before ever fitting the VR6 lump. The damage was pretty bad but the insurance company stumped up and repaired it. However the insurance renewal of £2600 fully comp meant I could no longer afford to drive it and it was consigned to a corner of the driveway. My long term plan was to rebuild it and fit the VR6 and drive a Ford KA till I was a little older. It seemed some theiving little scum had other ideas and it was stolen off my drive and never seen again, it was also uninsured as I wasn't using it so I lost everything :-(. After 12 months of noGolf and just the KA I was going insane and decided I needed another car to put a smile on my face so along came the mini (My beloved Kylie). Cheap to insure and quick for what it is, what has happened to her over the three years of ownership is another story (and about £12k) and you can find out all about that on
www.minifinity.com , but here is a lovely picture of her as she is at the moment.
As Kylie has become somewhat of a trophy and show and shine queen I needed something to do the daily grind and this where the current GTi comes in. I shopped around for all sorts of dreadful cars to do the grind, things like a Rover 214, Rover Metro, knackered fiesta etc. With a budget of around £400 my hopes were not high! So while checking on insurance of the above mentioned old bangers I thought I'd stick in a quote for the Golf to see how much it had come down with me now being an older (and eledgedly wiser) man. To say I was dumbstruck that it was less than a 15 year old Rover 214 is an understatement. Armed with my £400 I came here and on Ebay in what I thought was an impossible task of getting a GTi for that money.
As luck would have it I managed to get this one for a song and within budget. It had an almost complete VWSH and reciepts going back to day one including the delivery note. Below are some pictures of what it looked like shortly after I picked it up.
So there I am with a standard MKII 8v as my daily car. Well much as I love em I think they look so much better with the eyebrow fitted so off I trotted to GSF and bought one and painted it and fitted it.
THe eyebrow was the start of a slippery slope! Next were the wheels. I managed to pick up the 15" TSW blades off a chap on this forum for £50 including tires and with a lick of paint on the calipers it looked much improved if not somewhat high. As it turns out the suspension was shot and so a streetline kit was ordered through Euro Car Parts of Leeds and was fitted with the kind assistance of Lewy also from this forum. Now I'm getting somewhere but I thought I better leave it at that. Somewhere alongthe line I also bought the clear side repeaters and and front inidicators.
Well that all looks lovely I thought, but you know those standard rear lamps really don't make it look like a GTi do they? So off I trolled to ebay once more and after much hassle, one set of broken lamps and many overpriced items I eventually got some half smoked 16v lights for it.
