1982 VW Mk1 Golf Project

In 1982 a car was born...

On the 25th of June 1982, someone somewhere bought a brand spanking new Volkswagen Golf C Formel E in shiny eye-catching Mars Red. On the 19th December 2005 I bought a twenty three and a half year old 1.1litre car that had been living in a barn for the last god knows how many years. The paint work isn't too bad as at some point it as obviously had a new coat (although some of that seems to have been put on with a brush!). The new paint does serve to hide some of the rust however (not really a good thing) although to be fair, considering its age, the rust isn't that bad.

So how the hell did I end up with this old banger and what on earth am I going to do with it? The car appeared on ebay, and a friend of mine who keeps an eye on such things brought it to my attention. It was for sale in the same town as me (always a start when the buyer has to collect) and was up at the bargain price of 50 quid. I've always wanted a mark 1 golf. I have a mark 2 valver which I love but I need that on a day to day basis so I cant take it off the road to play about with it. Mark ones have a bit more retro charm and the prospect of taking one apart and putting it back together renewed and refined started to appeal to me.

In the end the car got pulled from ebay because it turns out it didnt start, so I got in touch with the buyer. The reserve had been set at £199 so I took it off their hands for £150 (notice how I've managed to spend £100 over the amount that originally got me so interested!). The sellers towed the car around to my house (thanks guys!) and the deal was done.

So the first thing I did with it, was forget to take any photographs! A mandatory step whenever you embark on any major appearance changing project (*sigh*). So these are the pics that were put up on ebay.

Shortly after that my friend and I spent a cold evening outside under the miracle that is halogen lighting and got the little 1.1 running again. Turns out all the HT Leads were in the wrong order and the plugs were wet and dirty, nothing a bit of sand paper and a slow bake at 80ºC couldn't sort out.

So with the car running (suprisingly well) its time to have a thorough look at what its 23 years have done to it, and then decide exactly what I am going to do with it. And I'll cover that next time.

posted by intraclast @ 3:29 PM