Been lurking on here for quite a while now and since I'll be at the Gathering this year I thought I'd start a thread for my allbeit not-that-retro but quite lovely Polo Parade. Yes, sorry, yet another VW.
Bought it in February from a nice old couple. The wife drove it to the shops and back for 20 years and they finally decided that she needed a brand new automatic Honda Jazz so the Parade had to go.
This is where I stepped in and helpfully took it off her hands for the full asking price - as I drove it off I could sense her tears. I actually felt guilty. no, really - honest I actually did.
So the car is a 1.3 non-sunroof 5 speed that had covered 27k miles from new. They gave me a giant stack of service history including tax disks and even v11s dating back to the day they bought her. MOTs are one thing, but when you get the letter from VW congratulating Audrey on her new purchase it really is something else, chuffed I was.
So here are a few pics from the day I bought her:
Once I get her back to EmDee towers, I gave her a good wash and put some horrible black stuff all over the plastic trim. Believe it or not, I had never hoovered an engine bay until that day.
Note the ebay 80's AA badge
Actually I was a bit disappointed that her husband had taken the lovely National Trust stickers off in an attempt to clean it up for me
The story so far...
So in an effort to cut a long story short, I'll pick it up after promising myself that she would stay as standard as possible, apart from the classic 50's AA badge my Grandad left me in his will (shame about the wasted 80's one but what a result the older one looks way better - especially after I gave it a lick of paint) and the dealership stickers and badge - oh and maybe the stereo - but yeah standard apart from that.
So then after at least a week I decided it would only be polite to take her to PhilJ (Jackson Tuning) and get some lowerage (the standard ride really was awful) and replace the rather rusty old zorstpipe with a stainless item - as you do.
So a few days later she looked like this:
H&R 60/40 Cup Kit and a giant zorst - very standardish
Being the fantastic salesman that he is (he really isn't) I had to beg Phil to sort out some polybushes, G-lader ARB blocks and a nice 421 mani too. It really transformed the car - even if the tailpipe was maybe less subtle than I had hoped, it grew on me very quickly and now I wouldn't swap "the chavcannon" for anything
And here's the mani:
And a few of the other bits halfway through fitting
Only a couple of weeks later it was time for a nice rack...
Then some tunes (I admit I went a bit overboard on this, but I found the majority of the components lying around in the basement and it'd be rude not to install it all ;D
Since I didnt want to cut the original parcel shelf I bought one off devilbay and ended up finding out after installation it was for a mk3 bready, which required me to chop a huge section out of it to accommodate my rear windscreen wiper mechanism thingy - nice .
So then about another 2 weeks later I found myself by the side of a Dual Carriageway shouting at my Pierburg.
The (actually really cool) RAC man swore blind that Pierburgs were great, that the fuel pump was the issue and that he'd get me going in a jiffy.
30 minutes later he admitted to me that the Pierburg was done and proceeded to tow me to PhilJ towers where he put another Pierburg on for very little money which then lasted around 3 miles before the auto choke went. To be fair, the car was still running okay and it lasted me a week or two before I finally crumbled and forked out for a Weber.
Manual chokey goodness:
Then came the Ebay chrome cam cover (note the broken cover bolt doh)
And how she's sitting today:
Thanks for reading and sorry for the rediculously laborious first post - but at least you're pretty much caught up.
For now...
;D
Bought it in February from a nice old couple. The wife drove it to the shops and back for 20 years and they finally decided that she needed a brand new automatic Honda Jazz so the Parade had to go.
This is where I stepped in and helpfully took it off her hands for the full asking price - as I drove it off I could sense her tears. I actually felt guilty. no, really - honest I actually did.
So the car is a 1.3 non-sunroof 5 speed that had covered 27k miles from new. They gave me a giant stack of service history including tax disks and even v11s dating back to the day they bought her. MOTs are one thing, but when you get the letter from VW congratulating Audrey on her new purchase it really is something else, chuffed I was.
So here are a few pics from the day I bought her:
Once I get her back to EmDee towers, I gave her a good wash and put some horrible black stuff all over the plastic trim. Believe it or not, I had never hoovered an engine bay until that day.
Note the ebay 80's AA badge
Actually I was a bit disappointed that her husband had taken the lovely National Trust stickers off in an attempt to clean it up for me
The story so far...
So in an effort to cut a long story short, I'll pick it up after promising myself that she would stay as standard as possible, apart from the classic 50's AA badge my Grandad left me in his will (shame about the wasted 80's one but what a result the older one looks way better - especially after I gave it a lick of paint) and the dealership stickers and badge - oh and maybe the stereo - but yeah standard apart from that.
So then after at least a week I decided it would only be polite to take her to PhilJ (Jackson Tuning) and get some lowerage (the standard ride really was awful) and replace the rather rusty old zorstpipe with a stainless item - as you do.
So a few days later she looked like this:
H&R 60/40 Cup Kit and a giant zorst - very standardish
Being the fantastic salesman that he is (he really isn't) I had to beg Phil to sort out some polybushes, G-lader ARB blocks and a nice 421 mani too. It really transformed the car - even if the tailpipe was maybe less subtle than I had hoped, it grew on me very quickly and now I wouldn't swap "the chavcannon" for anything
And here's the mani:
And a few of the other bits halfway through fitting
Only a couple of weeks later it was time for a nice rack...
Then some tunes (I admit I went a bit overboard on this, but I found the majority of the components lying around in the basement and it'd be rude not to install it all ;D
Since I didnt want to cut the original parcel shelf I bought one off devilbay and ended up finding out after installation it was for a mk3 bready, which required me to chop a huge section out of it to accommodate my rear windscreen wiper mechanism thingy - nice .
So then about another 2 weeks later I found myself by the side of a Dual Carriageway shouting at my Pierburg.
The (actually really cool) RAC man swore blind that Pierburgs were great, that the fuel pump was the issue and that he'd get me going in a jiffy.
30 minutes later he admitted to me that the Pierburg was done and proceeded to tow me to PhilJ towers where he put another Pierburg on for very little money which then lasted around 3 miles before the auto choke went. To be fair, the car was still running okay and it lasted me a week or two before I finally crumbled and forked out for a Weber.
Manual chokey goodness:
Then came the Ebay chrome cam cover (note the broken cover bolt doh)
And how she's sitting today:
Thanks for reading and sorry for the rediculously laborious first post - but at least you're pretty much caught up.
For now...
;D