Here’s my new project, a VW Polo mk3 saloon. It’s 19 years old and has done 125k but isn’t in too bad condition. I’ve always wanted a ‘loon as I think they look awesome when tinkered with; my plans are to tidy it up and lower it a lot with some wide dishy alloys. I won the car on eBay for £335, after a frantic 3 days I finally found a car trailer to go fetch it from Blackburn.

Here’s a few pictures from the eBay add:

Front end view

Front end and driver’s side

Passenger side

Rear

Front interior

Rear interior

Clocks

After 2 hours on the motorway we finally signed the paperwork, crossed the i’s and dotted the t’s. Got it loaded on the trailer and strapped down ready for the ride home.

On the trailer

Looks a great base mate.

Any engine plans?

The plan is to smarted up the outside and get it looking decent, the paintwork is pink and dull. I firstly got out the t-cut to see how well it would come up. I knew that if it didn’t come up bright red I would just re-spray it a colour which would be easier to work with and a colour I like. Here are a few pictures of me doing the bonnet and the boot with jut t-cut.

Knowing that the paintwork would come up looking good I set out with some G3 cutting compound, polish and wax. I firstly cleaned the panel I was going to do with washing up liquid to remove all the dirt. Wiped it clean and sprayed a light coat of water on the panel and the buffer. Placed a few small blobs of the G3 on the panel and smeared it all over, then used the machine polisher to go over the panel. Once done I hand wiped the panel clean, applied a layer of polish using the machine polisher and buffed off by hand, I then did a second coat. I then added a decent layer of Collinite 476 by hand and left to harden and buffed off by hand. Here are the results:

Bonnet:

Boot:

Roof:

I then moved onto the passenger wing and doors, doing the wing first. There was a go fast stripe down the side of the cars which was half coming off and make it look a bit tatty so that had to be removed, using a hair dryer it came of pretty easy really.

Wing:

Then started on the door, I decided that due to someone breaking into the car with the previous owner I would just but a set of new handles. They tidy up the side quite a bit so I’m happy with them.

Door:

So far that is all I have done on the body work, I bought a new front bumper, door seals, GT clocks, black seats and clear indicators all round as well as a 90mm/80mm lowering spring/shock set. I sent the car for an MOT to see what it needed and it failed on the front suspension and rear as a spring had snapped and a shock had gone. So with the lowering kit it should be all ok. I also got an advisory, you probably wont see a better one:

I’m trying to get it all done in my spare time, but I’m not winning with that at the min so it’s not been as quick as I hoped.

holy crap thats come up well!

Man, that is great.

It'll fade though, it always does

then you'll polish through it

crazy how much you can transform the paint! i want a red car now! looks so good!

Saw this on ebay when it was forsale - youv done a great job on that paint

Correct it will go pink again.. if you leave it to.

Keep on top of it and i'm sure it'll stay red until it gets a re-spray haha.

Continued where I left off with the machine polishing, I now only have the drivers’ door to do. I left this to last as the ‘go fast stripes’ are been a pain to remove and there’s a few scratches where the door looks to have been opened onto a wall. Here’s some pictures along the way:

Rear panel:

Then started on the drivers side.

Rear panel:

Front wing:

All I have left is the door, this is the reason I haven’t done it yet:

Some of the parts I’ve ordered came too.

Suspension, wheels, brakes and door seals.

Will be getting all the parts fitted this weekend, so the car will look low and wide haha.

crossed the i’s and dotted the t’s

i noticed that little play round with that haha so good how you've polished it up like that ! :p

woah nice polishing, those wheels... mmmmm

Bloody hell! What a tranformation!

Hopefully doing the suspension this sunday. I've already sprayed all the bolts to help crack them open. Front headlight needs lining up and presume the screw in the grill does that? Next update will be the door finished. Then itll look a totally different car.

I love mk3 loons best of look with it mate

this is gunna look sick.

Really dissapointed with the drivers door. I've had to cut it quite deep to get any kind of shine from it and the paintwork on these are thin anyway. Just need to think about engines to go in it now. Gonna try and kill this 1.05l first. (gotta add that .05 on as its silly fast and think its all about that )

i saw this one ebay and was hoping someone on here won it looks great now with the polish cant wait to see it with the new alloys on, I've got the same problem with the red its hard work keeping up with it at the rate that it fades but its definatly looking good, good work

:-D

Man i want a loon!

Managed to get the drivers door polished, other than the scrapes from a wall it didn’t turn out as bad as I first though. (I put a bit more effort in to it lol)

This is what I had to sort, mega fading. I used paint cleaner to remove the sticker and gunk and general dirt which was on the door.

Machine polished it and half buffed off the G3.

Starting to look a bit better, who’s that good looking guy?

Then looking like it should have done, red.

I just put the old handle back on as I didn’t have time to sort the lock barrel out before I took it to get the suspension sorted. The whole front suspension is getting rebuilt as it was rusted on and nothing could be undone. The rears are on and sitting rather low. More pics of it this week.

More to come.

Fantastic. its a different car

I've just killed my loon (or have i) they look brilliant when tinkered with and this is no exception well done bud