Really old enough to know better

I'm just about to buy my first water pumper VW. I've had aircooled dubs all my life - I've still got one in a pile of pieces and boxes (which I will put back together one day) in my garage.
However, the need for something that vaguely resembles a sensible/practical car (which I can then mess about with and remove at least one of those criteria) after selling my Mazda MX5 (just about the most impractical car for somebody with girlfriend, two teenage kids and two stupidly big dogs) leads me to buying a cheap Golf GTI as a rolling project

We are looking at a couple tomorrow - if the first choice comes off then we'll have a nice red Mk3 2 door, if that falls through, then it will probably be a Mk2 which needs a bit of work.
Andy