So, I drove the car for whole of the summer and started stripping it down that September. Just before summer I added the hood with subaru hood scoop that I got for a good deal, ABT mirrors, Koni Coilovers, and French Ecodes. My wife had some Mk4 Avus rims that I used for a little bit as well.
After I started stripping down the car to get ready for cage to be installed. I had heard about bolted in one, but wanted the structural rigidity of a welded in one. Plus, I had a friend that had just started his own business and we worked out a deal to get the cage done for a good price. It started off as a 4 point, but eventually morphed into a 6 point.
I also had bought some Recaro A8 Seats and had them shipped from Denmark.
By the spring of '05 I found a local guy, about 25 miles from me that was willing to take on the body work. He had fixed one of my other cars and had done a pretty good job, so I though he would do a good job on this one. Plus, he had shown me a Porsche Widebody that he had done and it looked very nice. We had agreed that I would pay money as he did the job and he would do the job when he wasn't busy. Needless to say, I was about to be greatly dissappointed.
The original plan was to do a custome metal widebody using corrado arches and flares. I sourced the parts from an associate and brought them to him to fit. I pain the initial installment of $300, and a few months later he told me that he was not going to be able to finish up the car. I had not seen the car yet, and said ok. I basicaly paid him $300 to wreck my GTI. He had tack welded the arches and flares on and had warped both rear quarter panels, which on a unibody car as you all know is not a good thing. I was very unhappy with the body work, but could do nothing about it and no shop wanted to touch it to fix it. I was almost on the verge of scrapping the whole thing.
I know the photos don't show much, so I guess you are going to have to take my word.
So, after about a year. A friend of the guy who did my cage finally agreed to take on the project of restoring my GTI to its rightful place. I had bought Kamei wide flairs to redo the widebody with, but after he and his dad started on it. We decided to just go all custom wide body.
What I had decided on for him to do as well as the wide body, was to shave off the fuba antenna, shave the door handle recess, shave the front and rear bumpers as well as the Euro Hatch. Oh, I forgot to say that I had received the euro hatch a few months prior and it had been dropped on its side. The shipping company would not doing anything about it, even though I had insurance on the package. It had warped the whole hatch. To top it off, it had been shipped out from germany from a company called TM Tuning. I have had lots of issues with them, but didnt have a choice because no US tuning company supplied the european hatches at the time. Thankfully my new body guy was able to repair it.
More to come later.
Edit: Image issues. Photobucket is being weird.
Edited by buddylove, 19 December 2008 - 05:56 AM.
