Starting a thread for a car I tell myself will be a functional daily for school, but most likely wont be... I miss driving a fun VW when my mk1 is in storage so I lucked out and picked up this '98 GTI for a bottle of scotch! Its quite a long story for how I got it but in the end I believe its a case of the previous owner wanting to see its journey continue. Its been sitting for 3 years so I had to do some regular maintenance to get it running, new fuel, oil flushes, contact point cleaning, battery, etc. but once I found it turned over freely and gave er a crank it started fine and ran! (I've since had to do plugs, leads and currently have the front end off for the crack pipe but that's after getting it running lol) It's got a built motor with some goodies like a Schrick intake, and came with a Zurich engineeriing supercharger kit that was previously mounted. Its also got some other goodies like an unknown performance exhaust with an upswept scorpion tip (sweet) and Neuspeed lowering springs for suspension. As for plans, its gonna get ugly (in most eyes at least). I've never had the right car to do a 90s build on and I wouldn’t be able to do it to my mk1 as it’s too original, but now that I have this bright yellow beut it’s time to attempt my favourite look of all time! Ill be putting to use my studying of the 90s vw show scene group, my PVW mag collection, and D&W catalogues I have in an attempt to make it the ultimate Brit show scene clone, it wont be easy cause I'm Canadian and wasn't even alive in the 90's lol, but ill try! Here's a list of mod plans for this thread: What I currently have for it: Deitrich RS look bumpers, 17" o.z saturns, smoked mk4 look mk3 lights that ill be painting the housings yellow on, yellow interior details like a shift knob, neuspeed seat belt pads, neuspeed pedals, and a jamex wheel and hub. For parts I plan on buying for it there's m3 mirrors (my personal favourite mirrors), m3 look tails, skirts to match the bumpers, a debadged grille, a sunstrip, bad look parts like headlight eyelids, a stubby roof antenna, and I'm considering doing an RS2 badge, and if I can find and afford one, a monowiper of course! And of course, fido dido stickers here's some pics! by the way I'm open to suggestions for other common 90s mods I can tack on so feel free to shout them out!
Hello, I'm not sure how soon it began happening, or if it fits with your intention, but the Mk.3 did follow the earlier models in having the saloon bonnet/hood, headlights and grille fitted. In Britain the saloon didn't use the name Jetta, so the alteration was known as a 'Vento front'. The bumper was different too, but you already have plans there (and of course the matching rear bumper only fits saloons). In one way, you're already ahead in having an NA market tailgate, with the different number plate recess. I think that colour is the same yellow as the 'Colour Concept' edition, which had the seats, door trims and handbrake grip partly trimmed in matching leather. Again, these could be added nowadays, but maybe not at the time.
I have seen the color concept ones and I think if I do some interior accents that's the way to go! I've seen a couple places that still sell the door cards and then I could retrim the handbrake boot etc. but It would be something down the line, my one worry with going to yellow interior accents is getting them dirty lol! But I am always willing to sacrifice a bit of functionality and time due to cleaning for good looks lol!
As I recall the handbrake grip itself is the colour match, while the lower part (which I think of as the boot or gaiter) is black. I think the button is the relevant colour, too. CC's may not have had the 'highline' rear section of the centre console, though, and definitely not with a cupholder in it for the rear seats. Think carefully about the lever boot already fitted; the lower end of it's fixed to the console by a plastic surround, with locating tabs heat-softened and bent over to hold it (on uk types, anyway, another thread here shows an NA type, which seems different). It's fairly scarce, and the number I've seen offered with this method torn out, possibly by the sheer awkwardness of removing the console.. Another 90's occurrence in Britain was the mk.3 convertible remaining in production after the Mk.4 came out, until 2002 in fact. In an attempt to disguise this, what's called the '3.5' cabrio appeared. External alterations were the boot/trunk lid, which gained the Polo-type handle seen on Golf 4 and many other VAG products. The bonnet/hood saw the washer jets moved to the rear face of the frame, rather than being in the panel top. But it also has a small 'bite' out of the front edge, to meet the much larger grille badge. In the cabin, some chrome items were added; the internal door handles, seat belt lower rails, glovebox lock barrel (the lower-mounted type, used when a passenger airbag was fitted, which was almost always), the handbrake button and T-shift button for au**matics. Illumination of switches changed to Red. Out of curiosity, does the car have rear fog lamps? I thought that NA market cars usually don't. The light switch has a foglamp symbol, but I think it may be for the front ones I see in the bumper. In Britain, they've been required for decades, though only one is compulsory, centrally or on the right. VW only fitted one to Golf 3 hatches, though the cars were fully wired. All that stopped people putting a 21W bulb in the left-hand light was the hole in the light housing being blanked off.
If I do end up doing some interior mods i will most likely follow VW's lead with the color concept touches. And thank you for the heads up on the boot! I'm still brand new to mk3's although as far as I am aware NA cars did not have a rear fog, I do believe though that with the right parts it not too hard of a euro conversion to do to get them!
I've been able to get a little too well acquainted with this car than anyone wants to, first thing to kick the bucket on it after its first drive was the crack pipe! So I had the whole front end off but this gave me the opportunity to get to see what parts need to be taken off to get where (unlike my mk1 8v where everything is within arms reach) and it also gave me a chance to make it better with bits like an SAI delete (no cats anyways). Then after its first real drive with a bit of an Italian tune up, had my heater core start to kick the bucket so the interior felt like I was on the set of the thriller music video with the smoke (coolant steam in my case) but a quick bypass got me on the road for a very cold and rainy cruise as I had my windows down so my windshield wouldn't fog up too much! On the mod front, I was able to buy the skirts that originally came with the RS look kit that a previous owner of the bumpers had so that's quite nice! I've also decided that I think ill do the mk3 polo rear door handle conversion on the fronts for a smoother look, and then I also want to find some untextured clip-in mouldings to replace the shrunken stick on ones I've got now. I think ill also do a shaved hatch as Ill probably end up wrapping the car a similar yellow (its currently pearl so paint matching to do the kit will be annoying) On a side note, anyone by chance know if someone is still selling the storm single wiper linkage conversions for a mk3? I have a bonrath mk2 kit so could use the arm, but i'm not sure if i'm willing to sell out like 200 euros for a full bonrath kit or the short so wouldn't mind doing just the linkage
Fido dido stickers came in from Zengraphics! Ill be peeling off the dark tint and switching to a clear blue, so these sunflower yellow beuts should be a nice contrast!
Was able to find some M3 mirrors at a wrecker across the country for $50 CAD so had to jump on them! Saved me a lot of money from buying off of eBay. They are the cheap 2 piece baseplate/mirror version and not hagus or the like, but they'll do! Just would like to find some baseplates as these ones are a bit warped, then ill smooth them out with some bondo to make 'em look one piece! Threw them on for a test fit -
Looks a lovely solid MK3 there!, don't see many around in the UK, road salt has seen most of them off..
Thanks! Surprisingly even though it was a daily for many years the only bad rust on it I've found so far has been on the passenger fender but I already have a replacement euro fender to pop on luckily! Its a shame how much salt you guys get, seems to be one of the demises of many of the cars that I am using inspiration for this build from!
I was looking at a picture of a mk3 that I'm hoping to have mine end up like and noticed that it had the signals and markers smoothed out (or maybe its also an RS copy and the bumper came that way) which led to me thinking of doing it to my RS bumper as it would de-clutter the front end but I brushed it off a bit because I would like for it to be as road legal as possible. Just yesterday I remembered that because I'm using mk4 look lights for a mk3, the stock mk4 lights had the turn signals integrated into the housing and there may be a chance I can do the same. Sure enough, the Hella lights I'm using already have a bulb in there (possibly a fog?) so might be able to do some adapting! I already have to do a fair amount of work to the lights as ill be color matching the actual housings to the body so what's a little bit more learning! (Also, check out those venoms! I would kill for a set of them in 17 and 5x100 but they seem to be hens teeth over here)
Keeping the thread updated! Was working abroad for over 4 months so didn't get anything done to the car and missed the summer, but that didn't stop me from buying parts for it! To add to the build list i've picked up: - Metal boser hood extension to be welded on - m3 style tails - m3 mirror adaptor plates from Rudie Mods - Bonrath monowiper (bought in person and threw out some things I brought with me to make the baggage weight limit lol) - Five panel wink mirror - Harness bar to run with bucket seats when i find a good set - 17" O.Z polaris' - Two NOS 1997 infinity kappa amps - JL 15w1 subwoofer - Harness bar I still need more parts for it like two 12" subs, 6n rear handles, a beesting aerial, badgeless grille etc. etc. the list goes on haha! One think I got to was a lot of thinking for the plans for the car to make the build more extreme. Ill be ditching the rear seats for a less crowded sub build, with of course a shaved hatch, and one odd thing i'm planning on exploring once I have my dash out (need to do the heater core) is modifying an e36 dash to fit in (continue the m3 theme of the car a tad) which i saw done once in an old PVW mag but my research has turned up nothing for others doing it. I'm also planning on doing some more performance based mods to it as well, rather than a chip rune with the supercharger im planning on going microsquirt instead with upgraded injectors, and water meth injection. With how much money ive spent and will be spending, I have no doubt proven myself right when I said in the very first line of this thread "a functional daily for school, but most likely wont be..." haha!
