Iv been on the forum a few years now posting here and there but have never started a build thread for any of my cars which I always regret.
This car has quite a background before I even bought it so will start there. Iv included a picture of where it was before I broke it aswell if you can't be bothered to read the thread and just like seeing a transformation.
The car started life as a nice little 1.4 80bhp MK5 Golf.
Then this happened..
Usually people would say never mind it's only a car off to the scrapyard you go. But Marc @ TukCustoms had other ideas.
If you didn't know TukCustoms is a Northampton based bodyshop offering a amazing, friendly service, producing some of the best work I've seen in the UK.
Marc wanted to show off his talent by reshelling the MK5 with MK6 body panels..
This means new rear quarter panel..
New wings, everything..
As far as I'm aware it's the only one in world. People may be thinking "What's the point?" "Why not just buy a MK6?" I can understand where your coming from but when this car was built MK6 golfs were new and strong money. It's also a great way to show the work you are capable of.
So that was exactly what Marc did, showed off his new car at Early Edition '13. The car went down really well and people didn't believe that it was a MK5. It even won an award in it's class.
He had fitted AirLift struts, EasyStreet V1 management and some Porsche eta-beta splits.
The car then got split down. Wheels, R bumpers, Xenons all got sold and GTi bumpers put on.
Marc then sold the car to Thomas Bowsher who some of you may know who owns an epic wide body MK5.
He used the car everyday for travelling to work. Even though the car is a 1.4 he wasn't finding it very cost effective and wanted a diesel. So I did a deal with him on my Audi A3.
Within a day of having it home I'd put the parts I had spare from the A3 on it. Rotiform LHR 3 piece splits w/ hidden hardware and retrimmed Recaro CS.
It stayed like that for around 2 months. I never bothered going to any shows as I was always working. I decided over the winter I'm going down a totally different route with the car so I stripped it all. Wheels, seats and air ride all sold.
So that's how it sits at the moment, completely standard, ready for some BIG changes.
I have big plans for the build up to UD. So don't wanna give to much away but I'll leave this here as a teaser..
Slight change of plan, I don't wanna miss the first couple of shows so have decided that I wanna go to Ulitimate Dubs and Early Edition then am going to pull the car back off the road.
Plan is now to get the bodywork up to scratch, suspension and some form of wheels for UD and EE so I can roll to these shows with a half decent car. Then after EE I'll rip the engine out and start smoothing ready for the R32 engine to go in.
Anyway progress on the R32.. Loads of wiring loom to sort out..
Rather than cutting out the bulkhead, I decided to cut the fusebox wires as I need to extend them anyway to relocate it when I smooth the bay. Quite nerve racking cutting apart a 8 grand cars wiring loom when your a chef and no real knowledge of doing anything like this before.
Engines out..
Shells gone.. The lad who bought it has got big plans for the shell. Quite funny how many show cars 1 car can build. The front bumper is going on one well known show car, the front wings are being used in another and hopefully the engine will help build mine into something special.
Bit dodgy getting it on haha
Also went on a little road trip today and picked up a nice little treat today, will upload pictures of that tomorrow.
Cars still at TukCustoms still but is pretty much finished now. Can't recommend Marc enough, really pleasant and personal experience. Here's all the work I had done..
US Spec R front bumper and wide wings..
To carry through with the "R" theme I wanted the back bumper obviously but also wanted to make it US spec. You can't buy these off the shelf so had to buy 2 bumpers to make 1 short recess bumper..
Last but not least had the rollcage colour coded aswell..
Car should be home in the next couple of weeks, so will start stripping it as soon as it's back. Got these last week too..
So I got the car back from Marc on the Friday before UD. Obviously in no state for a show, no headlining, interior etc.
I had also sold the GTi front and rear bumpers with the exhaust back box so needed to take an exhaust up with me to fit and get me home. R32 style exhausts are fairly expensive so just bought a hidden tail pipe one to get me home. Well when I came to fit it I realised I hadn't measured the diameter of my downpipe and it was completely different sizes lol. I fitted it the best I could and had a very loud journey home essentially having no catback exhaust.
I booked a hotel to stay up at UD and was going to take the girlfriend beetle but decided I'd rather have one last drive in the golf before I took it off the road so convoyed up with a few people from down south.
Really enjoyed the show, put a few names to faces, new friends etc. It made me really wanna crack on with the build. So glad I'd quit my job as a chef and was actually enjoying life.
Started by stripping all the newly painted parts and stashing them out the way so they don't get scratched lying around the garage as there isn't that much room.
Next dropped the rear subframe and fuel tank out..
Cut a couple of holes lol..
And that's where I'm at at the moment. Will finish bolting up the the new fuel tank and subframe tonight hopefully. I can then turn the car around and strip the engine and front subframe out. I also painted the rear subframe black while the car was away..
