Well guys and gals, for those of you who can bear to read about a non E30 GTi, after 3.5 months i have seen my car in the VW compound and have tried to take some pics for you all:



Have to say i'm really pleased with the colour choice and wheels and lights etc etc!!!! Has been a real long time coming.
So the million dollar question... Do I wish it was an E30???..... Actually no. Why not? Well here's my thinking. Feel free to comment but i have tried to word this is an objective way, and have not tried to critique each car. That is covered elsewhere.
So my Gti cost £20,360, in addition i have 18s but was offered these (post deal!!) half price, so £222. Total cost therefore is £20,582. All other options that I got I would also of had to buy on an E30 (such as Xenons) so I'll ignore these for now.
Cost of equivalent E30 was £22,295. So i have saved £1,713. Add to this insurance, which with my jaded history would be an extra £100 a year, and we could prob add a slight hike in fuel costs but can't be bothered to calcuate the 1 to 2 mpg saving.
So in year 1 I'm easily £1800 in pocket. Plus I love the blue. Bit unusual and a lovely colour and of course not available on the E30.
And the other point of concern for me back in Oct 2006 was that I have driven a GTi, but not an E30 and did not want to gamble on the spec and reviews of the E30 with £24k! No one seemed to know what was included and the deabte still rumbles to some degree.
So there it is. I got a GTi, which is an Evo 5 star car, saved a wad over the E30 and have no regrets. I'm not into tuning so that ability to get 300+ horsies from it is irrelevant to me. Couldn't cope with the insurance or fuel costs of either.
BUT, I would of like the body kit of the E30 and the extra power (without the assocaited costs). But the money just didn't sell it for me. If I had wanted leather (which i hate) the costs for comparison would of been very different.
I also appreciate that second hand values of the E30 will be higher than the GTi, but it would cost me more and you never get back what you pay. Plus if the E30 had turned out to be a stinker (not saying it is), the value would have collapsed.
So to conclude, I have an agonising 2 week wait until midnight of the 28th Feb to kill.....
Would like to hear your comments.