Confession time. Look at it:

Hardly moved since E38 - wants a service, covered in household dust (no car should ever be covered in household dust) and with Korea/Frankfurt, then marriage/honeymoon and having a commute it's not really suited to (68 miles on the crowded A1) it's been a bit of an ornament recently. Sad times.

Edited 17 November, 201114 yr by Alex

Weather depending I've got plans to take it down to Kent on the 18th December for a meet.

Not scared of rain, obviously, but if it's as snowy as last year it's not going anywhere! People don't know how to drive when there's snow about - and my test cars between now and Christmas all have CWTs.

Weather depending I've got plans to take it down to Kent on the 18th December for a meet.

Not scared of rain, obviously, but if it's as snowy as last year it's not going anywhere! People don't know how to drive when there's snow about - and my test cars between now and Christmas all have CWTs.

Where is the meet in Kent?

It's not a VW meet

Sorry - wrote that quickly on my phone earlier. It's a networking event for motoring journalists.

You fancy doing it all again Alex? We could swap?

Seriously though, I regularly look at mine and hope it will look that good one day.

Thanks!

I do look back and think through everything that I've done with it and think how gutting it'd be to have the car back as it was. That said, I'm slightly better off than I've been most of the way through building it, so in theory it wouldn't take me another 11 and a half years to build another.

But I wouldn't!

If I stack this I'll break it for bits and buy something different. Corrado VR6 possibly, but probably a Honda S2000 or a CRX with a B18C conversion. Or an Audi Quattro - which one day I fancy adding to my collection alongside this one!

Sharing the driveway as of today - something with lots of VW badges but none you can see without opening the bonnet:

Pardon the pic whoring - decided to take it to a Renault press event near Lutterworth last week. It was pretty much the only car in the car park that didn't have press fleet plates on. And I thought it looked cool reflecting the trees, so I took a pic:

Also, it looks like Toby's bought himself a Clio:

Serious face - best hot hatch you can buy right now. This one's a Raider, special edition job, but the 200 Cup (no frills) is the one to have. Back seats out, cage in, yellow harnesses for the Recaros, ditch the crappy steering wheel and go enjoy it. Love it.

Oh yeah, because of our crappy one in, one out driveway, I left it out overnight the day before (parked where the Cayenne is in this pic):

Porsche delivery driver came to pick up the Cayenne first thing on Friday (Shogun's my ride for the week) and he took a bit of a shine to the G40. :)

Gotta be happy with that - the guy spends his whole time picking up brand new Porsches.

Edited 28 November, 201114 yr by Alex

I had to look about 3 times to get what the fuck you were talking about

Does look sick

I had to look about 3 times to get what the fuck you were talking about

Does look sick

I'm still trying to work it out personal joke?

It also took me a while, I'm pretty sure its the paint though...

Yep, it's the paint... At least Toby got it.

Edited 29 November, 201114 yr by Alex

Went down to Kent in the G40 today - what a drive! Weather was pretty awful - hit patchy snow, sun reflecting off the soaking wet motorway and dealt with shite London driving standards too.

Got to the destination - only 100 miles - and the car had gone from near immaculate to this! (thanks to Rich @ Polo Driver for the pic!)

Drove brilliantly though, so much so that I took the long route home to put some more miles on it. Not ideal conditions with the roads being so greasy (even with the diff) but nice cold dry air makes for decent G-smiles. I nearly ran out of fuel on the way back though - whoops!

Taking it back to Cardiff after Christmas for a service, then up to the bodyshop after New Year. Then a charger rebuild in January. Busy times!

Edited 18 December, 201114 yr by Alex

What you having done at the bodyshop?

What you having done at the bodyshop?

Finishing touches - I collected it before it was completely finished back in June

Finishing touches? I know pictures don't show everything but it looks so mint.

I find the grey really wears the dirty look so well, mine is filth at the moment.

Well to be specific it has a couple of patches which need undersealing, the sunroof spoiler needs to be painted ans fitted (I'm scared of scratching the sunroof panel when I'm adjusting it) and they want to mop the bonnet again just to get it perfect.

Like I say not much but if it's going to be off the road while the charger is done it makes sense to let them have the car for a while. :-)

What colour you doing the sunroof spoiler?

Bright colours FTW

Cars always look good filthy IMO.

It's going satin black - I can't be bothered with bright colours as its never seen. Bloody thing will probably rot within a few months anyway!

lol, the arms are nice people for rotting.

Hammerited the shit out of them on mine.

Brought the Polo home to Cardiff over Christmas and the New Year for a spot of maintenance at the garage that's done most of the work on it for the last decade. The mechanic I used hadn't seen it for a few years (what with me living in Kettering) and was interested to see how much it had changed!

As usual a thorough job done - new fluids and filters, fresh top mounts up front (driver's side was hanging), ATE race brake fluid and a check over the rear brake cylinders for leaks. Result - one happy Polo.

I love going up there as there's always something interesting in the workshop. He's into his road rallying and so is his son, which means there's often something like this in bits:

What you're looking at is a 205 Rallye with a 1.5-litre 141bhp engine and an interior stripped back to nothing. Cool car! Unfortunately one of the valves hit a piston and broke apart, destroying some expensive engine internals. Putting this back to the spec it was beforehand will cost over a grand!

And in the yard - a Land Rover County 90:

The garage is Autotuning and Alarms near Pontypridd by the way...

It's been good fun going out and around on the roads I grew up driving on. But i'd forgotten just how much of a nightmare Cardiff is for speed bumps!

Supercharger rebuild next. :)

Edited 31 December, 201114 yr by Alex

It's been a busy weekend!

Took the car to Eastcote Customs yesterday, whipped the charger off and left the rest of it with them. This meant getting a train in my workshop clothes, with a grubby and heavy box on my lap. As you do. It also meant paying £28 and £11 for a taxi for a three hour journey, recovering the distance I covered in 50 minutes in the G40. Cars 1, public transport 0.

Then today I took the charger up to Pete Mirfin's place near(ish) Sheffield for the rebuild. Always unnerving taking a charger apart but it seems to be in good shape:

Pete had a stock charger lying around, which gave me the opportunity to compare my Full Blend one to a G40 as VW intended. There's a lot of metal missing from mine - notice how much thinner the outlet vanes are, and how much has gone from the inlet (at the top).

Already looking forward to getting a shiny and fully serviced G40 back. :)

More news as and when...

i have a G40 charger in pieces on my shelf, I'm an aerospace engineer by trade and i see all sorts of wonderfully machined parts day in day out but it never ceases to amaze me how good the machining is on them, i dont mean as in surface finish - the accuracy of the channels esspecially the grrove for the apex seal. they must have scrapped hundreds of these!

I've got a knackered scroll on the mantelpiece at my parents' house back in Cardiff. I'm a sucker for machined parts myself!

when you think they would have had very basic cnc its incredible! love it:-)