[Closed] For The Love of Cars - Golf GTi

I'm no petrolhead but I am enjoying the series, last night's was good, fond memories of my parent's golfs growing up.

I would love a go in a rally spec mk1 GTi.

I used to have one just like the black one in the show, except mine was rusty and smokey. Still the funnest car I've ever owned.

Looked great in the end

I've had a few mk1's and looking at the state of that shell, I think I would have binned it and found something more solid to start with.

I wanted to see how they patched up the windscreen pillar and sills. It is a good programme, I just want to see a bit more of the work being done

I've started to get bored of it the programme now, it's become Car SOS without any footage of the work being done and more of Phillip pretending to be his Fire Up the Quattro character. There's obviously unrealistic TV production company budgets as I can't see that any of the builds so far cost less than a couple of houses in Wakefield and the auction prices always suddenly and inexplicably jump to create "new world records".

It's nice but doesn't stand out as anything special for a mk1. Now if it had been a 16valve MK1 that would have been something

First series was definitely better - not loving the hard luck/illness diy sos element to the last two programmes.

Re the change of location between the two series - I'm guessing Anstead has moved his business, but it seems to have been too big a business for too long to have been in that little lockup used for series 1.

[url= http://www.evanta.co.uk/ ]evanta[/url]

I'm sure the first series showed more work being done didn't it?

Also Ant seemed to be doing the work instead of buggering around while his minions are in the garage until midnight

jools182 - Member

I'm sure the first series showed more work being done didn't it?

Also Ant seemed to be doing the work instead of buggering around while his minions are in the garage until midnight

Fear not guys, there's always Ed and Mike 🙂

jools

look up project binky on youtube for a restomod with more info on the "resto" side of things and repairing/modding of panels/shells/suspension mounts.

but be warned the guys are not have a go heroes they have previous in this sort of thing as well as the quals to back it up.

Nobody seems to have mentioned Roadkill yet in this thread. <mentions Roadkill>. Not really the same but if you want to see people take a dead car and turn it into a, well, a very unwell car usually, and do stuff with it, they're your boys.

I had one in the mid to late 80's as student, T reg I think, bought for £200 off a friends mother who had it from new. Great fun. Another mate bought it off me and ran it for a few more years until one day the engine compartment (and whole thing) went up in flames after a blast down the M4 from London and stopping at Membury services. I think I remember there being a problem with the fuel line splitting and running close to the hot exhaust manifold on some VW's of this era. I had an Alfasud cloverleaf after this which I loved too, don't suppose there are any of these left now, all rusted away

oh, that sounds like my B reg Golf GTI redstripe - I bought it at 50k from a friend (I knew the previous owner too, it had three owners by then), I ran it til 115k when I sold it to a colleague for buttons - he ran it for a while more, it went on fire but he was able to put it out, get it fixed up and ran for a while more.. one of my fave cars (despite having crap lights, windows that leaked, it just started and went, and stopped (even when brake lines burst and I drove 200 miles on air..)

I had a 1984 Mk1 1800 in black when it was two years old. Great car except for the brakes which were seriously underpowered for the performance available. I sold it to buy a mk2 1800 which had better brakes but was no where near as much fun, and the sunroof leaked. The best of the Gti's I owned was a Mk2 Jetta 16V. even better handling and a noticeable power hike on the 8v. Should never have sold that car ( replaced with Peugeot 309 XS- why did I do that?!?)

I think they nailed the handling when other cars of the time weren't much bottle..,
you could just throw the golf Gti into the corner without having to resort to anything mental....

Did you see the end? The car's original owner's Father in law bought it at the auction as a surprise.

Could he not have done the deal direct saving himself £2k in auction fees?

I did wonder about the Aston Martin they did....

I mean it was so original after they changed it from a slushbox to a manual and put the vantage carbs an retrimd and re sprayed in different colours...

I thought that the people who wanted that type of car wanted originality ..ie car is as factory build sheet.

(Not knocking it though car was nice after they'd done it...but I think I'd go for a sensible Audi/Lambo thing if it was my coin)

Was great to see Madge's husband from Benidorm pop up & buy him the car at the end though...
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pictonroad - Member

Did you see the end? The car's original owner's Father in law bought it at the auction as a surprise.

Could he not have done the deal direct saving himself £2k in auction fees?

Where's the drama in that?

My mate in far east had a Golf GTi (not sure MK I or II) with a Toyota 4AG engine. 😆 We love 4AG.

Drew from Salvage Hunter was bidding for it at one point.

I've a friend with a mint & original mk2 16v sitting in their garage, hopefully appreciating!

Now if it had been a 16valve MK1 that would have been something

They were building a historic rally car, so to compete in it's age category it would have to be original (ish, depends who's making the rules).

Could be a 16s...

Had a J-reg Mk2 16v, which was one heck of a machine. The handling was properly sorted, you could corner the car on the throttle superbly and maligned sixteen valver isn't short of go...although it needs 98RON fuel minimum before it delivers the goods.

The steering feedback is completely on a different level compared to anything else I've driven.

There's obviously unrealistic TV production company budgets as I can't see that any of the builds so far cost less than a couple of houses in Wakefield and the auction prices always suddenly and inexplicably jump to create "new world records".

They do seem to have "tweaked" the format a bit from the first series, seems like they're trying to be more efficient with time. but I'm Not sure why they all have to go up for auction at the NEC show.

Seems like they had a narrow window 8 weeks or so, for doing all the restorations (Probably have a much bigger team/extra subcontractors doing most of the actual resto' work off camera just to allow for shooting deadlines) add on a day's worth of shooting the "finale" and took all the cars at the same auction and the whole series was done bar the editing inside of a couple of months.

I'd quite like it if they didn't "break records" at auction at least once. it has started to seem a little contrived now.

Fiat 500 next week... Hmmm.

Still prefer it to TG though

The best of the Gti's I owned was a Mk2 Jetta 16V. even better handling and a noticeable power hike on the 8v. Should never have sold that car ( replaced with Peugeot 309 XS- why did I do that?!?)

Several years after selling an 8V Golf GTi, I saw it rather tatty in the street with the owner it in. He'd just bought it and intended to restore it. Keep hoping to bump into it / him again.

I've switched off this series of the show for reasons mentioned above. I'd like to see more of the work and less of the presentation.

pictonroad - Member

Could be a 16s...

Warning, Nerd mode.

Yeah, if only it was 1) French 2) using a 1.6 16v engine built by Oettinger and not the usual 1.8KR or 2.0ABU.

having had the pleasure of driving the 16s back in the day it made the regular 1.6 and 1.8 feel dull....and left the mk2 16v trailing...

(I only wish it had been mine..... it shared a garage with lots of unusual cars inc a HPE Volumex and a RWD renault 5 turbo)

Hi guys just thought I'd pop on here and hopefully clear a few myths..the reason the golf was built as it was is simply because the homologation papers needed for a group2 historic rally car say so..no ifs and no butts if it doesn't comply no homologation papers. That includes it not having an Oettinger head as this would make it group4 rally spec.
My Dad who kindly bought the car for Walt did not tell anyone he was going to the auction. He decided to do this as I had been telling my family how upset Walter would be to lose the car..the production company would have done everything they could to let Walt keep the car but Walt had signed a contract to say the car would be auctioned and as a man of his word he stuck to that. Also everyone wants to keep their cars why wouldn't they ,they are gorgeous.
Walter built his own engine because quite simply he was the most experienced engine builder on the team and he started it so he wanted to complete it. This kept him going through some really tough chemo sessions for which o am very grateful. Sometimes things are just as they seem and this is one of those times. Hope this helps..

Had various MK2s 8Vs in the 90s, but my favourite Golf I owned was a MK1 1983 1.8GTi. It had 260,000 miles on the clock when I bought it but was in amazing condition. It was a bit quicker off the line than my mates MK2 16Vs, it wasn't until you hit about 70 that they would pull level and pull away. Great fun, miss it loads.

Rainy I presume you are Walts wife/relative? If so it was an ace car and I hope he is able to enjoy it for however long he can. I really enjoyed the programme.

rainy - Member

Walter built his own engine because quite simply he was the most experienced engine builder on the team and he started it so he wanted to complete it. This kept him going through some really tough chemo sessions for which o am very grateful. Sometimes things are just as they seem and this is one of those times. Hope this helps..

Great stuff, it was amazing to see it in action once the build was done and a great finish - not a dry eye in our household in the last few minutes. Hope he gets to enjoy the car for a long time to come.