Hello! Here with a new project, 81 GLi Cabby

Howdy everyone Just joined because i've started work on an 81 GLi cabriolet, i'm a diagnosed old vw and old car nut, we have a few projects but most notibly, my Two Polos and the rusty TYpe 3 fastback are probably of most interest!

Heres the first one, my first car (owned since 2010 now), learned to drive on this as a 1l 4speed but its now an MPi 1.3 GT converted car and is my daily. This takes me from Devon (my home) to coventry (my uni) regularly and never misses a beat. It has basically been stripped to a shell bit by bit now and rebuilt so suspension, brakes etc are basically new. The head was rebuilt and the engine fully overhauled before it was fitted. My dad and i do everything to our cars ourselves.

This is my pride and joy.





The engine bays a bit tired from all the use it gets, but its still relatively tidy:


I'm into the OEM look, nice simple and classic, please excuse the odd wheels there, long story!

And then my own at home project, an 83 Polo Formel E hatchback (bready) in Mars red, this has been in my family since 2001.


The father son project at home, which i want to get finished this summer, not a vw but, a 76 Triumph Stag, i really do love this thing, owned it since around 2001.




Then finally the golf, i will make a build thread soon for it, but a quick bit of history:

The story goes, it was bought by my sister and her then boyfriend (now husband) roughly 5/6 years ago being a cheap mot failure, with the plan to restore it and have it as a weekend car, at the time he wanted to learn the skills to do this. He did do some items, such as sort the non working horn and lights, and buy and semi fit a new soft top, after that he ran out of enthusiasm. To be honest i have not been pushing him since he wanted it resprayed black, with all the interior plastics replaced with black items and cream leather upholstery. It makes sense to start with a black one at least first. And i love the retroness of this!It has been garaged but not touched up here in Coventry, i would often wonder down to the garage and sit in it before i could even drive. I have always wanted to take it off they're hands but cannot realistically take it back to Devon to add to the collection where it would have to be stored outside. They are aiming to move to a bigger house soon so i was asked to dig it out the garage and advertise it.

A discussion was had, and basically if i fix it, i can have it, dependent on whether the next house has a garage and the space is not needed for work. So its staying up here in Coventry where i can work on it at the weekends for the minute atleast.

Some pics:









I'll leave it at that for now, i have so many questions so be prepared

Welcome Mat

That cabby has cleaned up well. Is it a case of strip it and restore or get through the MOT and enjoy it?

Nice Stag by the way  

Enjoy your time here

Andy

Lovely collection. Nice looking cars, and definitely beats the standard student runarounds of micras and fiestas etc.

welcome along mate, the cabby looks wicked whats the colour code i dont think ive seen one that colour before.

what you got planned just restore back to factory condition?

Oh and were the pics of you polo taken at the SWDubs meet start of the month me and richyhill went down to that.

If youre ever in bristol hit us up theres a monthly meet first friday of each month

Scott

Welcome along to the forum dude.

Smudger

Welcome along mate.

I'm also a poloist.

Mines a mk1 derby. The cabby looks nice.

Ian 

Welcome to the Mk1 club bud, never seen that colour before and it looks like it could come up a real stunner when finished. What are your plans with it?

Also came from the polo scene myself, great little cars and really fun to work with  

Thanks chaps, the colour is Brazil Brown, seems to be more common on Mk1 Roccos.

Arf333 yes they were, i recognise your mk1, had a good look at that, really nice car!

I would love to do a full strip and resto, but i have too many of those that need doing already (we have more than the cars i listed above), it would be cool to enjoy this in the coming summer aswell if possible. My girlfriend loves the idea of going to the beach in a convertible and the likely hood of me getting insured on the Stag is slim.

My intention is tidy it up and make it reliably road worthy basically, interior and dash out, weld in new arches, new wings and sort some other rust patches out including an annoying one in the scuttle.
Remove the non working alarm wiring, stereo etc. Re do the stereo wiring and if i can afford it fit a modern alarm and central locking. (just did this to my Polo).
Scrub all the interior replacing a few bits including the rear bench. Overhaul brakes, service engine etc and mot it.

The only unknown comes to the paintwork, it will be staying this colour. But it is tatty, and will be worse once i've replaced the rear arches and wings. I would go for a full respray, including door shuts, slam panel and inside of bonnet. Leaving the engine bay to do at a later date. However money wise thats unlikely. It may be a case of rattle can the repaired areas until money allows.

On the down side my sister has now changed her mind, she said i could have it. But now i'm working on it and its all clean she's saying they keep it, and i do it, then i can borrow every now and then…

Sounds like you shouldn't make it too nice or your sister wont let you drive it again!  

This was my dream car back in the 1980's before I bought my first car.  I wanted the exact colour, although at time I think they came with a beige roof as standard. Would look lovely back on the 13" GTI alloys, don't know why, but I never think P-slots look as good on the cabbys.  Looking forward to watching this one.

Heres the colour cart from the 1980 brochure

MatsOldCars  any update on this?

RichardHall said

MatsOldCars  any update on this?

Yes, i need to make a build thread at some point!

Things certainly have changed, this is an old thread! I have been on a placement year, living with my sister where the Golf is stored, this couple with a pay cheque has helped! Progress has been slow, being stored outside limits work, and i ended up travelling to Devon every weekend in January to March to help my parents clear my grandparents house, for the stupid miles i was doing i bought a 91 B3 Passat Estate TDi, which naturally has needed tinkering
My other sister decided to buy a house and gut it, so i've been roped into this a number of weekends too.
Things really have been stupidly busy this year!

Heres the most up to date pictures, taken on the 17th May.



As per the usual, it turned out to have more tin worm than thought, both inner wings needed repairs, thats a new front apron fitted and new front wings. The scuttle has been repaired, leaving me with the doors, rear arches and passenger floor to repair.

As much of a surprise, the V5 was put in my name for my Birthday in December, just after i had bought the Passat, so now i own four silly old VW's

I finish my placement at the end of June, and am moving home back to Devon to do a classic car restoration apprenticeship, now my grans house is gone, we have no off road parking too.
The plan is, to get this roadworthy and mot'd around the time i finish, there is a big classic car show near my home i would love to take this too 10th-11th July, we shall see!
I don't have a weekend free until 13th June, but i have booked a couple of days off to get some progress in. Then when i finish i intend to just stay and get it drive able.

I'm not even sure i will be able to keep it long term, i will then have three cars on the road to take home to the tiny road we live on, i've grown far too attached to the Polo to sell that, and the TDi Passats far too practical to get rid of, especially since my girlfriend will be in Cov next year so i am sure i will be required to visit. She's fallen in love with this though, and my other sister says she wants to buy it when its done!?
Its all very confusing.

Either way its going to be enjoyed at the sea side this summer! Hopefully a couple of shows too.

Heres a link to the most up to date thread i have for it:
http://www.swdubs.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=30609

Nice to hear is still progressing albeit slowly with the little time you have.  If you do finish it and your a Sisters change their minds, let me know - no idea where I would put it though!

I will certainly remember that Richard, i wouldn't want to sell it, since i don't think i'd find another, but it may come to the point where i need too. It certainly would need someone who appreciates the colour!

I would be interested to find any other Brazil Brown Mk1's on the road, i struggle to find anything this colour apart from a few Mk1's and Mk1 Roccos in the states. I should probably get a topic open at some point.
Even a picture of a nicely restored one?
The only i have seen in the UK was on ebay about 4 years ago, tatty but very original with mot, didn't sell for much!

 

I have never seen one for probably 25 years, hope you can find the original wheels that are in your SW dubs post, the ones on the Haynes car. There is an 81 Silver GLI original looking cabby on eBay at moment , looks quite tidy for £2500, but I don't want silver.  There is someone in forum with an early torquouise blue one.

I will quote you on that one, my sister still says 'You're not seriously planning on keeping it that colour are you?'!

The shade of Ginger really has grown on me to be honest!

Just looked that GLI up, very nice, 81 is the first year of the series 2 dash then? I am confused as to whether mine should have the early style rear badges, or the later.
Going from my ones spec, the silver one is missing chrome trim bumpers, chrome trim windscreen surround, black painted sills and the sill chrome trim?
I have a friend thats just bought a Gold 82 GLi cabby, same spec but later style seats and later style badges.

Being honest those are not my favorite wheels, so i won't be hunting for a set, not to say i wouldn't buy a set if they came up though, i do like the P-slots on it.
I'm not going for full originality, but then nothing will be undo able, in fact i think it will be more original than when i started, i've spent alot of time removing the alarm wiring and additional stereo wiring. The worst being the electronic modules screwed through the underside of the scuttle with self tappers. A nice surprise has been the original stereo live and negative turning up behind the dash with the original VW non iso stereo connector still fitted.

The back seat i have is original, but the material is rotten and the foam crunchy, i have a later grey back seat to go in to make it useable, i will keep the original old as a pattern. The fronts have turned out to be from an early Mk2 Rocco. And the front door cards have big holes cut in them for speakers!

I remember someone posting that the GLI was in both Series 1 and 2 and that the specs were sometimes a little different regards trim - yours will probably have had the Tarantula alloys come to think of it, I still like the early ones though. There were all sorts of odd colours for short times, I have seen metallic Red, yellow and a strange green one as well as the regular Silver, Black, red etc. probably what adds to the mix of confusion is that the early 80's was popular for personal imports or forces personnel being able to order RHD cars abroad,  there was then a later Bronze colour in about 82/83 not as nice a shade as Brazil in my opinion though.

You might be able to track down the right model year brochure if your lucky but still might not give you the exact info your after as VW photo'd European spec cars and reversed the negatives so cars looked like RHD .

the 80 & 82 model year brochures are on the forum home page.

This does have a tarantula alloy in white in the boot as a spare which was my original thinking for its original wheels. However further inspection showed its stamped 83 so atleast this one cannot be original.

It may just be me being stupid, but i couldn't find the brochures? I had a quick look last night.

Here is the link

http://vwgolfmk1.org.uk/index.php?page=galleries&type=misc&id=brochures

On the home page down the right hand side just over half way down there is a section for brochures, but the above link will take you straight to the pages.

Excellent thankyou!
Typical that the 80 brochure shows that silver ones spec perfectly, which is full series one, then the 82 brochure shows the later trim after mine and no brazil brown.
Mine must have had an 81 only interior! I don't think i'll be finding another then

Its rated at 110bhp too? That makes it the most powerful car i have