1979 Inari Silver GTI

During the build of my other series 1 GTI, I gathered lots of parts for its build, and kind of graded them. Many of the parts are rare, and I kept buying things in good useable condition, but quite often would later find the same part NOS, and end up getting that too. So, I ended up using the best of everything I had to ensure my Golf was as good as I could get it, and the rest of the parts were stored away.

5 years down the line, and I've half a garage full of bits and bobs for series 1's that are in great condition. The likelihood of ever using them was slim, but I work on the premise of, 'you never know'. My eyes are constantly scouring the Internet for series 1 GTI's and I started to log how many are actually left, backing up my files with photos of the cars and their reg plates. I'm not really sure how I ended up owning the following car, but I imagine all the spares in my garage play a small part.

This car appeared on here and Volkszone and I immediately took note, as it was a '79 GTI which needed logging. I felt sorry for the car, as the 90's scene had clearly left its dirty mark on her. The cheap Zender copy body kit, the awful front seats, white bathroom carpet, dreadful colour and the whole host of inaccuracies which make the original car difficult to identify kept me intrigued. I could feel my head talking me around, but my heart kept reaching out to it. So, I got in contact with the seller, and asked for more details. The owner seemed like a genuine and helpful guy, but his knowledge on the car wasn't great. My questions were technical and demanding as I was trying to establish what the car actually was. Slowly, I started to piece together the evidence of what this actually is under its 90's disguise. And, as I made a list of what it needed to give back its identity, I soon realised I had in stock. The final thing I wanted to know was the original colour. I know it's strange, but I really didn't want another Mars Red one. I was keen providing it was something other than Red, as I intended to restore it using all my bits, and originality was high on the list.
Weeks went by of exchanging emails with the seller, and it became stalemate, as he really couldn't give me an answer on its original colour (yes, I did ask him to look under the bonnet, in the boot and under the carpets for evidence). After discussing the situation with a friend, he reminded me of the little ID plate found on the slam panel of series 1's. He said that the factory paint instruction could be found on there, and then emailed me a copy of the guide…



So, keen that we might be close to sorting the dilemma out, I emailed the seller and asked him to photograph the slam panel and send me the details of the ID plate too. Later that day, this came through…



You can see the code Y4 quite clearly and this denotes Inari Silver in the guide. That was it, a deal was struck, and a deposit paid. I'm pretty certain this might be the only Inari Silver series 1 GTI left in the country!

I should also send thanks to Rajan, as I consulted with him on some issues around the cars identity, and as always he was very helpful, and very knowledgeable.


The following photos are lifted from emails that were sent to me by the seller…





































With my mind set, I hired a trailer for £50 and set off early one Sunday morning last March to collect the car, based on the strength of these photos and the paint ID plate!!!! The good news is that there's actually very little rot and the car has just been stored since the respray all those years ago. Hence, the mileage is pretty low at 87000.




As soon as she was home, I called my friend and invited him over for a cuppa and a swap shop of bits. We set the Halogen work lights up, and beavered away inspecting it until the late hours. We found quite a lot of evidence of its former guise, which was pretty satisfying. Anyway, deals were struck between my garage of bike parts he wanted, and his car load of series 1 parts I wanted! I got a full set of seats, and the correct Black cloth to match, plus a host of other little bits I was short in my collection.

So, the intention is to bring it back to its former glory and identity, but it will be slow, and done on the back burner, as the other mk1 is king in my domain. I'll update the progress as I go along, and we'll discover the Inari Silver evidence when I start removing interior panels and carpets.

Oh yeah, the seats are first to go!

glad to hear your bring it back to former glory

in it's current state it's a ugly ducklin indeed

Nice to see this car (if it is as you hope) has gone to you mate.

Fingers crossed it all goes well for you and you find some silver bits somewhere!

sorry to rain on your parade but i have a series 2 inari silver and your series 1 definately isnt inari silver unless vw changed their colour names after series1(google inari silver you will see what i mean)sorry pal

Ha ha! Clearly you've not read this thread as intended. The ID plate doesn't lie, and of course it has had a respray in Irish Green, hence why I was asking the seller for 'evidence of originality'.
I'm pretty well versed on all aspects of mk1's and tomorrow's photos will show the seats removed and the original patches of Inari Silver in the parts the seller couldn't reach.
Trust me, it's genuine!

Kind of like the bathroom carpet  

Good luck with the build, if its anything like your other one it will be amazing!

Congrats on the purchase mate. She needs a fair bit of loving bodywork wise to restore to former glory. Looking forward to seeing this come together. Good luck with it. You're a lucky fella

The seats have been removed, and it wasn't an easy task. A previous owner had used coach bolts and sections of tubular steel welded to the sills and seat runners. Why, oh why?
The problem is that the angle grinder struggles to get a clean cut on the welds as they are in such difficult and delicate areas. They actually welded one piece of metal over the loom. So, as I grind the welds, the loom is literally 2mm away - nice!
Removing the carpet and the seats has given me clear evidence of the original colour too. Wen I pulled the quarter panel trim cards, the Inari Silver was all still there as well. I actually scraped some of the matt black paint off in the boot with my finger nail, and again, Inari Silver.
The photos are just a little update, and there is a degree of overspray of the Irish Green visible, but
You'll still see the Inari.

Great find , a mate of mine had a inari gti  series 1 many years ago. would love one in that colour.

I have seen a couple of inari series 1  gti's on ebay over the years , the last one I can remember had a reg that finished 20v …..  should have bought that one!

Was inari available on uk cars? or imports only?

I think it was available, but the history of this car points to it being owned originally by a serviceman being stationed in Germany, and then bringing it home with him after his tour.
The interior spec should be the Red tartan too. I can't believe that I had a mint set a few years back, sat in the spare room, and then I sold them on here. I always prefer using original cloth on my cars, as they give a real patina of age, but I'll have to get some of that reproduction tartan soon.

I tip my cap to you Ben for taking this on. Series 1's are where the money is in the MK1 market (not that you're looking to make money).

You probably know more accurately but I seem to remember reading there were 96 registered with the DVLA??

 all the inari cars I have seen have the red tartan .I better speak to Ash and tell him you need your seats back.

Yeah, that's right. But in reality, I imagine half that exist now. The figures are not very accurate as people don't declare they're scrapped etc.
I have been trying to log just how many are left, and I've got photos of 28, but believe I know about 3 others that I can't get photos of just yet.
My guess would put it closer to 60 left. Of that number, you would then have to grade them in terms of condition, and I'd say there's only about 20 rot free ones. The others all need work to some degree, or display inaccurate features. Some of them are in a really poor state, and need many thousands to bring them back.

The beauty of this project is that it looks disgusting, and turned everybody off, but it's largely rot free, and won't be as hard to restore as my last one. Furthermore, I won't have to sit and endlessly search out all the period correct details as I'd already collected them. I guess it was a very calculated purchase (took over a month to decide!).

mark83 said

 all the inari cars I have seen have the red tartan .I better speak to Ash and tell him you need your seats back.

Haha!
Fear not, I swapped some bike cranks for another set.

I like reading threads like this, attention to detail and an uncompromised eye for what your looking to buy. Good work, looking forward to the slow boil rebuild.  

that really needed rescueing, look forward to the build thread.

 

Love the story behind this build thread - great attention to detail. Looking forward to seeing the final product. Must say Inari silver is one of my favourite colours in a mk1.  

Keeps the updates coming…

Wow great story and as you say, it looks a solid shell so shouldn't be too bad a resto.

I do love Inari Silver, I think my favourite colour on a series 1 GTI, just seems like it has to be that colour.

When I was a little kid many years ago ( ) a friend of my parents used to have an Inari Silver series GTI, I used to drool over it back then.

Really looking to seeing this one unfold and based on the quality of your Mars Red one, it will be a minter

doh..! sorry dude your quite right i didnt read your thread correctly..yesterday was a long first day back at work ..good luck with the restoration

Wow, what a great project mate. You're doing the right thing sending it back to the 70's, it will be great when it's done. Keep the updates coming and good luck with the resto.

Andy.