VOLKSWAGEN GOLF GTI MkI

Graham has many fine GTIs, but this ex-press car is a bit special

March 1980 issue of the AA’s Drive magazine.

‘It belonged to motoring journalist, Brian Laban, and I heard about it through one of his friends, Clive Richardson, at a car show. It had sat for 20 years, but I managed to get it going in September 2017 and MoT’d in December. It just needed a couple of welded patches, a set of tyres and an exhaust.

‘Then, in May 2018, I decided to have it restored in time for the Golf GTI’s 40th UK anniversary last year.

‘The engine had an appetite for coolant, so it came as no surprise when I began the stripdown that one of the cylinder bores had corroded following two decades of standing water from a blown head gasket. Removing the rot made the bore too big so I bored out all the cylinders and sleeved them back to suit the oversize 80.25mm Mahle pistons.

‘The body was also rotten. I had to replace both outer sills, the nearside rear inner sill and jacking point, half of the nearside floorpan and the rear axle mounts on both sides.

‘Then there was the lower half of the front panel, sections of the inner and outer rear wheelarches, the lower half of the rear panel and the scuttle corners, not to mention the lower sections of the windscreen pillars.

‘Not all of the panels are available, so I had to fabricate the rear inner sill section. I also fused the rear lower panel to the original upper section because the only complete panel now on offer is the one for later MkIs with bigger rear lights.

‘Then came the paint. There are four shades of Mars Red and this car was built right at the crossover point between the first two. The build certificate I got from VW said that it was the first shade, so I painted it in that colour. Then I realised that it should be the slightly lighter second shade for which the formula is different, so I had to spend another 30 hours flatting and re-painting it. But it’s still the first colour in the engine bay. I’m not doing that again!

‘Once I’d painted the body, I left it for a month then roughmopped it. Then I built the car up and got a professional paint detailer to do the final polish.

‘I set myself a deadline of spring last year to finish and after about 750 hours’ work the GTI got a new MoT at the beginning of March.

‘Mission accomplished!’