Welcome to the forum. Not really into scoobies (or BMs), but got to take my hat off to you on the work done. Engine bay looked special.

There's loads of opinions etc on the car to have, but I just can't see a mk3 being a decent enough spec for you coming from a BM & scooby background and I don't see it as a track car at all in my opinion.I get your thinking on the rust side of things though, but I'd still personally go for a decent mk2 16v over a mk3, but again that's my opinion. The torque thing about 8v & 16v is a myth as 8vs don't have any better low down torque over a 16v anywhere in the range, there's a graph in the mk2 section as a sticky that will prove it.

One thing I'm surprised that people haven't mentioned is a 16v mk1, now there may well be rust issues here as even the newest tintops will be over 20 years old, and the 16v mk1 will be a conversion, but 139bhp+ in a car that weighs about 800kg means they shift.