1983 Mk1 GTI in NZ

[sifty]

Please excuse the fact that I'm reposting here what I posted on another forum, it seems no one looks at the other one much. Additonally, it's an '82 not an '83

It all started about 2 years ago when I decided to buy my wife a mk1 Cabriolet for her 30th birthday. It was the car she really wanted as a teenager back in Canada - White on white.
Seemed like a good idea at the time, but I soon worked out there actually are not many of these around any more.

I'll fast forward because this thread is about my GTI not hers. So I found one, bought it, gave it to her, she loved it... but much to my surprise I really loved driving it too!

So, the search began for my own GTI... Started out looking for a Mk2, but pretty soon I convinced myself I needed a Mk1. Turns out these aren't so common either! fast forward some more so no one gets bored. I was out minding my own business in my wife's GTI Cab, and this guy comes up to me and starts talking about it. Turns out he has one too... a hardtop... that he's considering selling... s**t... He lives nearby, so I shuffle off to take a look at - it does need work... what to do? Answer, break the bad news to him that it's worth less than half what he thinks. Walk away disappointed for the moment.

Here's some photos of it the day I first saw it.



Skip forward a bit and this is how is looks now: (As you can see, I actually drive it)



So far I've done quite a bit of rust work, mostly just surface rust but it was widespread, so I've taken it back to bare metal with a sand blaster, acid etched it and zinc primed it while I save up for a proper paint job.





I've installed H&R Cup suspension - which is awesome.

Cleaned up the interior and added a period Becker stereo from an '82 Benz.



Here's a shot with my wife's Cab.

[mikinoz]

Love the story and the cars!

[GoLfMan]

nice mate! Good to see both are driven and enjoyed

[ByronRichesMk1]

Awesome combination!
So good to see more Mk1s being loved, driven and cared for!

[sifty]

Cheers guys, it's not my daily but I usually manage to drive it 2 or 3 times a week and we live in the country so it's mostly nice twisty open roads.
My wife driver her's quite a lot too (her daily is a Lupo) and it is the vehicle of choice if one of our daughters is choosing.

Just received a little "care package" for my GTI yesterday


All new decals, all the silver stripes, fuel filler surround, etc.

[paintz]

Awesome mate. How long was it off the road for while you prepared it for a paint?

[sifty]

I haven't actually done a respray yet. Here is the story: When I bought it, it looked TERRIBLE, both gutters where full of rust, and a lot of rust spots all over the roof, bonnet and left side. It had sat in a carport for at least 10 years, the interior was a mess too, covered in mould. The car looked so bad in fact that a number of the local VW Club members had already looked at it (the year before) when it had been listed for sale and decided it was too far gone and should be parted out. They all told me it was junk when I said I was considering buying it.

Anyway I looked long and hard at it, on 3 separate occasions over a period of a few months, all the while trying to realign the seller's pricing expectations with mine. I came to the conclusion that it was not nearly as bad as it looked. Almost entirely surface rust only with 3 proper rust spots of note - Along the bottom of the rear window, under one side window and the bottom front of the left rear guard.

So I threw down my $$$ ($1500 of our NZ$ or $1162 of yours) and drove off the happy and proud new owner of a fully street legal 1982 1800cc Golf GTI with 175,000km on the clock.

Back to the original question then: When I got it home I was very keen to get to the bottom of some of the rust areas to prove my theory that it really wasn't that bad. At the same time, I didn't have the time, funds or inclination to take it off the road for a long time to respray it - I really just wanted to drive it. But I also didn't want to start spending money on it until I knew it was actually worth the effort.
So I spent about 2 weeks taking the majority of the rust spots back to bare metal, sand blasting, acid etching and then I've just painted them in black Zinc primer. So it's a rough spotty looking thing at the moment but at least I know the rust won't be progressing too much before I have an opportunity to do a proper job.
At the moment we live on a country gravel road so it really wouldn't be ideal to have a nice shiny new paint job here.

After I knew the body was OK I moved onto the interior, which cleaned up very well beyond my expectations. Then I fitted P-Slots, bought the H&Rs and have since just driven it a lot while tinkering with minor things.

[Lima]

Nice back story.

I really like the period stereo too.

[sifty]

Cheers!

Yeah the Becker is cool and sounds great too. There is a company in the US that does refurbishments on them and will wire in an Aux input for you. I may have to save up for that once I work out how to mount some decent speakers somewhere you can't see them.

[Dub Toffee]

Good on you mate any GTI is worth having!!
Got to remember that people in the UK have a hard time finding MK1,s with less rust issues than that.
So you done well really, have a blast keep her original but lots of fun to be had from putting a good Cam in
and working on the head a bit!