1.8 GL....any good?

[dom]

As above, trying to persuade my old man to get a Mk2. It can't be a gti though as my 20 year old bro needs to be on the insurance (as well as me of course), so was looking at 1.8GL's. They any good as a slightly cheaper gti?

Seen a mint looking '91 plate one, only 66k miles from new, 12 month MOT etc, but its a 5 door and an auto 

[Wayne]

Manual would be better.

But a good all round choice.

Carbs can be trouble.

[Thom89]

Get GTI for Dad, brother can sort himself out

Thom

[clipperjay]

One of my first strip downs a GL the seats were blue on mine so was the lush dash that came with it!(what I know now and then )
The only things that went wrong was the auto choke the diaphram plunger unique to GL's and Wax stats gave me no end of grief.
The first thing is stick webber on to it, sod the auto choke, plus towards the 120K mark it used auto box oil its just the way the box was designed to eat up seals over time and then consume oil!
Apart from that the 1.8 is very powerful and lost control of her a few times going too fast!  
Great rear suspension cough....  

[cняis]

my old scirocco GTII used the 1.8 carbed lump, and had a weber 32/34 conversion. if flew! probably just as quick as my old 8v gti 

[Neo Badness]

yeah those webers are not too bad at all on the 1.6/1.8 engines. relatively easy to tune on a shoe string too. Used to keep up with 8v Gti's in my Driver after some fettling. Sure a g/box conversion shouldn't be too difficult.

Failing that just enjoy the the cruisablity offered by the auto. Low and slow and all that.