Ugly you say..! lol no i think even under the hood it's just simple good concise german engineering practices

add to that there's room to work and attend to servicing with ease, a ten year old car remember with ten year old vehicle technology, all the better for that i say and moreso your glad it's VW and not one of the others..
Anyways apart from that i've never seen an 8valve GTI in that maroon colour!
Great job there.. a bit of inspiration to do mine even..nice one