Right then 'How did you get in to Volkswagens'

Come on post how you got hooked in to the Volkwagen your driving ?
Why you have one ? Was it ………..  

Accidently ? No idea ? Got given one ? My mate had one ? Just by chance .

 :dontknow:  

What would you have if you didn't have a Volkwagen  ?  

Ford perhaps ? Peugeot ? Rover ? Vauxhall ? Smart car ?


Lets hear your story  

Chudd…………

Got into VW's about 6 years ago now!!
Always wanted one since being a kid and finally got a Mk4 as my 1st VW, i've since owned 2 Mk2's, 1Mk3 and now have a Mk1 GTI Campaign!! We've also had 2 Polo's and the wife drives a 1.4 16v Lupo!!
Cant see myself driving anything else now!! 8)

My Dad had a blue '67 Bug from new. On the day he picked it up he took my Mum out for a spin, only for a stupid woman to T-bone him  :cry:
He then bought a new white '72 1200 from the same dealer and that was my first memory of VWs. He sold it for a new '83 Golf Formel E in Pargas Blue that I distinctly remember him choosing from the dealer. The dealer had a Lemon Yellow C, a Gambia Red CL and a Selvas Green GL in the showroom that we all sat in. I spent the whole day checking specs to help my Dad and I was only 11! This was the point where I started learning all about the different models. Sadly I wrote off the Formel E on a country lane shortly after passing my test. The strength of the car maybe saved my life or certainly worse injuries so I stuck with VWs as my first cars as I thought they were well put together. After a '75 Bug I moved onto a '83 GX but really wanted a GTi badly. I actually moved onto a '91 Driver before part exchanging it for a '91 GTi 16V after seeing it all shiny on the VW forecourt. After a year or so I added a '83 GTi in Helios Blue and spent a fortune on engine conversions, etc. I sold them both for a '96 GTi Colour Concept for some long distance driving to work but sold it after a while due to having company cars. But I still yearned to fulfill a 15 year passion of owning on of the first GTis. I regretted not buying a black '79 GTi many years ago after passing it by only for some slight rust on the boot floor. Never again! Many years later I happened across another black '79 that looked in a fair condition and bought it immediately. After some restoration I thought it too good to use so bought another early Mk1. And then another. Well, you know the rest!

Used to always want a bug, camper or anything aircooled when I was a kid and frowned upon watercooled  :scratch: , I'd buy VW Motoring and Volks World and dream away! My earliest mag is from about 94 when I was 16 and my parents bought a bay window van about that time too.

I didn't get my first VW until about 5 years ago when I bought a dog slow 1.3 Mk2 for ?50, I put it back on the road then sold it and got my first cabby which I still have for the mo (soon selling). Since then I got the '83 GTI and Sportline.

If i didn't have a vw i'd be walking everywhere, well i do walk everywhere anyway!

It was about 1985/6, just after the release of the film Back to the Future, I was 10, and my local sports centre 'Richard Dunn,' was hosting an annual car show.
Having seen the film and thinking it was sooooo cooool, I fell in love with the Delorean.
And. Low and behold, at this car show was…………………………………
No, not a delorean, but a Volkswagen Scirocco.
To me, a 10 year old boy, it looked the same.
That was it, from that day I was hooked. I wanted a Scirocco.
But they were too much money and too much to insure and as I was growing up I got heavily into Surfing so the natural VW to buy was a Bug.
When I was 16 my parents bought me a 1970 J reg Bug for my 18th birthday, which cost them ?600.00.
I spent the next four years re-building it. I finally got it on the road when I was 21.
It was a true Cal looker, slammed to the floor on Empi 8 spoke alloys, all the chrome removed, no bumpers, all holes filled and all panels replaced with 1967 items. It had a 1641 race prepped, twin carbbed engine which had about 110BHP at the wheels. And I painted it Porsche Peppermint green.
In a traffic light Grand Prix it would eat golf GTI's for breakfast, but as soon as it reached 110MPH it ran out of steam. Still pretty cool though, would run a 14 second quarter mile.
I ran it for about 4 months and got three producers which I thought was an absolute p@#% take, complained to the local constabulary, they did nothing so sold it for ?1500.00, and bought my first Scirocco, a 1986 GTS LTD Edition.
Since then I have owned a Scirocco GTXi 8V, a Mk2 Golf GTI 8V, Polo 1.4 16V, back to the same Mk2 Golf GTI 8V, Corrado VR6 (awesome), Seat Leon Cupra 1.8 20V Turbo 180Bhp, another Golf Gti 8V and now I'm on my third Scirocco, another GTXi 8V which I plan to make an exact replica of the GTX 16V, as I have a 16V engine sat in my garage doing nothing.
I have always wanted a Mk1 Golf GTI and have recently talked my brother (mertle, a member of this site) into buying one off of one of my work colleges, a Lhasa Green series two.
I by the way work at my local VW dealership in the parts department and my brothers Mk1 was bought from one of the Technicians there so was well looked after and cared for.
And that is my story of my love for Volkswagens and how I got into them.
If youv'e read this far you lead a boring life or youv'e logged in at work and have nothing better to do with your'e time  
Just kidding, this is great, its like one big happy family of like minded enthusiasts, just dribbling on about what they enjoy.
Keep it real. happy Dubbing Dudes!  :mrgreen:

When I changed my job I moved from Preston to Watford and at the time I had a Mk2 Escort 1.3 Ghia. I had to refuel half way up motorway and the 4 speed box was very good for the journeys.
Now as a 22yrs old lad in '89 what cars were the tops? Mk2 GTI so when one came up at my local garage I went to have a look. An E regd silver 3 door, small bumper with the quarter light windows. It was a toss up between that or a C redg BMW 316. After taking it for a ride I had made my mind up but for a second opinion I took my mum & dad out in it. They came back complaining that the seats were too hard!! Bought it…. after blagging the garage fella to put some BBS alloys on it!!! The car ran like a dream, sold it for a Mk3 GTI in '95. Watched my mate wreak the Mk2.. wasn't happy and after a preiod in 'The Wilderness' I got a Mk3 16v. And then the Cabby. Got that from my brother in law after some haggling and renovated it to its current standard form.
I'd love an Splittie (too dear) but my next choice would have to be a late Type 25 with metalic paint, camper interior, lowered and decent alloys. Soon to come… one day!!!!  :roll:

My Dad always had VW Beetles during the 60's & 70's. I recall many a camping holiday, sat in the back with my brother and various items of luggage and equipment packed around us as the bonnet/boot and roofrack  refused to take anymore gear.
Although I was fond of the old beetles when I learnt to drive I was keen on something a little sexier with a bit more power. A bit of foolish bidding at the auctions brought me a 2litre Opel Ascona, the brother of the Manta, with rostyle wheels. WHAT a bad buy that proved to be. It spent more time in the garage than it did on the road. Fortunately, during that time a friend loaned me a 1976 1.6 LHD Golf LS. I ended up selling the Ascona back at the auctions and buying the Golf for ?300. It was a fairly scabby example but went like stink and was great fun to drive. I went about trying to hide the rust by fitting GTI arches and Kamei front spoiler. It had chrome bumpers but back then you wanted modern plastic ( ) so I replaced them with a plastic set from a Dutch Golf that had found its way into my local scrappy. A later trip to another scrappy brought a new interior, tailgate and bonnet my way…..all for ?35 (all somehow crammed into the Golf).
I had the car for about a year, loved it and spent many a happy hour blasting over the Moors or having days out at the Lakes.
THEN, one morning whilst travelling to work, the steering wheel was out by about 45 degrees. Up on the ramps she went…… yes you've guessed it…the trailing arm had rotted away from the floorpan. The rot had finally beaten me and I decided it was better to switch of her life support machine. NMC 691R (1976-1986) RIP.
It was a sad day but that little Golf had shown me the path to follow. A MK1 Scirocco followed, then my first MK1 1.8 GTI in lhasa green at 21. I toured France in that before selling it to fund my marriage  :x
A 1.1 Golf was a short term replacement….YUK and that was replaced with a 1.6 Diamond Silver MK1 GTI, which eventually made way for an Oak Green MK2 which gave great service. A Nugget Yellow Corrado G60 replaced the MK2 and I had that for 6yrs before coming back to my roots with my Alpine White MK1 GTI.

What a trip down memory lane ! Anyone still awake ???  ops:   

got into VW's recently (2 years ago), a mate was going to strip the Mk1 I have now to use bits on his caddy, went round and had a look and fell in love with the design of the back so brought it off him the next week

I think all of you would have seen my resto updates on here  :wink: liked the look of the car that much I rebuilt it with no real previous experience and wasn't at all disappointed when the time came to drive it

well worth every effort

expect if I didn't see that Mk1 golf I would have got another Mk1 Escort at some point

got my first vw 4 years ago when my dad gave me a b reg mk2 gti for my 21st (still have it)
so i sold my boy racer clio 1.2  and have been into vw audi ever since now on my 6th golf all being mk1 or mk2 & most being gti's

I'd been into bugs and busses for a while, and had had a bay camper for a while. Then my friend turned up one day in about '95 in a white MK1 cabrio with navy interior and roof. We used to whizz about all over with the kids.

I had looked at them in the 80's but were out of my league costwise with 2 babes to throw money at!  

Couple of years later a blue cab with wide wheels came up. I had driven hers a couple of times and loved it. I could just about afford this one so that was that.

8 or so years on and I still have that blue Golf, although it's currently SORN and hubby has started work on restoring it.

Drove a Sierra for a while when the Golf died, and although it was a good car, it was just a car - a to b and back again journeys. I always looked at the Golf as I walked past feeling sad :cry:

Last year the Sierra was on it's last legs and we needed something for me to get to work in. Hubby was looking at more sierras and the like, and I had a face on. :posh:

Didn't think there was any way I could afford a Cab, so started looking at tintops to check out the prices.

Spotted an 84 white cab on ebay. Had a budget of ?1000 max. Had a go thinking I had no chance…………and got it for ?700.  :cheer:

85,000 on the clock, door trims intact, no splits anywhere, interior in good condition needs cleaning. spent ?300 getting an oil/water prob sorted - still in the ?1000 budget!! 8)

Just got a bargain brand new roof vinyl from ebay for ?29 + ?19 shipping!!  

Love my Golf/s, can't imagine smiling so much driving anything else now!!! :mrgreen:

(Would quite like a frogeye sprite as well though!!!!) :wink:

Debs

i used to walk to work past my cab every day,for a year, i couldnt stop looking at it,

i got a job restoring the windows on this guys house near to where the car was parked, at the end of the job he mentioned he had a car for sale , i asked what it was and it was that same cab, so he let me have the car instead of wages!

its my first car and my daily driver, i dont want anything else, tho i would like an original mini cooper1275gt


im the third owner, its got fsh and everyone waves when i go through the village
my daughter loves it, so does the mrs

im 1 happy dubber

My first car was a 1986 mk2 golf 1.3 C special in Tornado red. I bought it when i was 15 and I spent all my time and effort doing her up. She slowly changed from a dull whitey-pink to a gleaming red dub. I even splashed out out 5 spoke alloys, sports exhaust and 90 spec bumpers and arches.

That car taught me so much from spraying - engine overall - electrics. She was a beast but at the time rediculously high insurance cost and my urge to go faster persuaded me to part with my beloved dub. I went on to buy a 91 civic 16i after that… that car was simply awesome and I realy dont have a bad word to say about her.

The hamster powered mk2 got me hooked on VWs and I knew one day I had to own the daddy of golfs - the mk1 gti.

That dream came true and I'm now a very proud owner.

         

1989 was the first VW Golf I got, at the time I was driving a Ford Orion Ghia 1.6i it was a time when the hot hatches were about 205, XR2/3 GTE and the start of the thiefing toad rags, the Orion was stolen, so I went to the Auctions for cheap car to put be by whilst waiting for the insurance to pay out. at the auctions I saw and bought my first Gti mk1 a lhasa Green Y reg but a year down the line and the insurance companies got feed up with paying out for stolen hat hatchs and priced them out of the market.
 :cry:

For me it was my Dad getting a Mk2 1800 GL back in 1988 as a company car. I remember him saying at the time… "It's a GTI without the I"… slight delusions of grandeur, but it made a big impression on me.

I'd just saved up enough funds for my first car which was a 1979 Mk1 Polo GLS. Which lasted for 18 months until my first Mk1 Golf GTI (Black 1600) graced the driveway in 1990.

After that I had a brand new company Mk2 16v in Oak Green (sigh!) and a Mk3 16v ( :shhh:  ).

Always had a VW in the family since then.

Cheers,

Drew.

My first car was my 1991 MK II 1.8 Driver I bought this 6 years ago and its never missed a beat and has done huge miles in that period. Its still doing 80 miles a day to work. All my friends at the time were buying Nova's or Fiesta's etc and none of them are around now so it was the durabilty that got me hooked.

I then bought a MK II 8 Valver a few years ago when I had more funds and owned this for 18 months whilst giving the Driver to my younger sister. This was then sold earlier this year for a mint MK II 16 valver which I had always wanted.

However I have always wanted a MK I GTI, I can remember a mint one down my road as a kid and the chap that owned it always got the girls LOL. So I have now got a good rot free example to restore and test the theory!

Well I'm of the age, to remembe the mk1 Golf gti's from new, but  I wasnt old enough to drive or afford to buy one. So when I finally was old enough to drive in 1987 my first choice vehicle, had to be whatever I could afford, and that turned out to be a 1979 Austin Princess :? ,not quite a Golf, but a car that got me from a2b. Over the next decade I went through various cars, even a Scirroco, but didnt think about having a Golf, due to insurance costs. Then it dawned on me about 3 - 4 years ago, how time had zipped by, and the Golf gti's I used to wish to own were now over 20 years old and I still wanted one, and they now qualified for classic insurance, thus making it possible to afford insuring a second car on its own insurance and keeping the daily driver on the main insurance . So 18 months ago, after 6 months of looking for a suitable project , and spending loads on hpi checks (at least three of the cars I looked at had bad history, and the sellers didnt know as they never did a check when they bought them ) I found a suitable project in a 1983 gti that is now ready to grace the roads.

The mk2's did it for me too, got a 1.6 driver when i was 16, had a mess about in and learnt to drive in it when i turned 17. i wanted a mk1 eversince i was about 14 and was searching for one, but gave up and got the easier to find mk2 after six months. i got another mk2 golf with a mate as a project, we stripped it and installed a vr6 :mrgreen: (at 16) which halted when getting all the running gear working :?  neither of us could possibly drive it so it was forced to be scrapped :cry:

sold the mk2 couple of weeks before my test and passed it at 17. few weeks later came along a mk1 1.3 driver, which was mine the next day :wink: it needed work no doubt, and was just getting ontop of it when my mum crashed into it :x  got a big insurance payout to fix it so i bought another the same week! my 1.1c which is a fantastic little motor and i run everyday to work, the driver is sat in my garage!

so theres my golf story, 4 owned at 17! if i had to have a non vdub :cry:  ittd be a classic mini, pug 205, lancia delta, or some other cool retro car :wink:

Greg 8)

Never really had anything to do with vw's until I was 18.  Was looking to replace my Astra sri with something, but at the time I had no idea with what.  Afriend of mine had just bought a mk2 driver and I really liked that so when out looking for a mk2 golf.
Ended up buying an '88 16v, god knows why because the insurance was crippling!!  A fantastic car which I still own 14 years later and we've done over 200k miles together.  But now it's modified (still road legal) and enjoys the odd trackday.  It's currently undergoing light bodywork repairs.

Got into mk1's in the mid nineties, buying my current one in 2000.  It came as a kit car after the previous owner had part restored it and got bored.  Was great fun and very satisfying rebuilding it, learnt a great deal to.

Still tinker with other makes and models from time to time - Just finishing off an mg project - but theres always a couple of golfs in my barn.  Cabby next me thinks….

Got in to VWs 20 years ago when I got a VW Jetta LD to replace a Renault 5 that I'd renovated with a mate whilst learning drive. It was almost by accident it was a Jetta as it was really just a diesel vehicle I wanted, most of the locals drove them (and were farmers or worked on diggers etc, cheap diesel anyone?  :wink: ).

This then got me interested and reading some of the mags etc. Although strayed to a 205XLD and now Clio dCI  I  ran a MK1 Driver and MK11 Driver as my main or only car for @5years each. Also had 1500 GLS for a short time and a 1966 Beetle for a few years as a hobbie car.

Brothers 1st car was a 1.1 Golf C that he kept for years. He kept with VW with his growing family for almost 20 years until very recently when he got his 70 year old father-in-laws 406 HDi for peanuts, too good a bargain to refuse.

Got current GTI and restored it 5+ years ago, then got Caddy 18 months ago and just recently got the Clipper so now have 4 cars and Mrs Early is loosing patience with my MK1 addiction.   The only MK1 variant I haven?t had is a Scirocco.
 :dontknow: