My car's a 1990 8V Golf GTI. At the minute it's got a set of BBS RAs on it, and has a few niggly jobs to sort, like a complete lack of exterior trim, stereo or door cards, and a bonnet in need of another coat of paint. Once those jobs are finished it will be pretty near to mint. Anyway, the 8V seems a tad flat, and once all the little jobs are done (and a few bigger ones like fettling the suspension) and I've got some cash , I quite fancy a 20V turbo MK2 with the 4WD out of an R32 / TT / S3. I'm thinking along the lines of a fully trimmed up, quiet road car with 270-300 horses, front and rear strut braces, possibly rallye rear suspension, flat undertray and a diffuser etc. Ultimately I want to have a car that feels like something that came out of Wolfsburg very well sorted, rather than something that rides and drives like a tuned car, if you see what I mean. Now, it seems fairly obvious to me that the quickest way to get to a 4WD car is to get a syncro to start with, rather than chop up the floor of my car and weld in a new one. However, the reason there are so many little jobs to do on the Golf are that I resprayed it during the summer, and I know the car has no rust, and isn't about to develop any in the near future, whereas any MK2 syncro I find will probably need respraying to be tidy, so the boot floor / floorpan mashing begins to seem more appealing - yes, there'll be welding and painting involved, but not on panels where appearance matters, so it can all happen much more quickly. Do you lot reckon it's better to swap to something that's already got the right drivetrain and bits or to fit the bits to the car I've got? I reckon I could easily pick up a donor syncro and the haldex bits and bobs for a grand, whereas any respray is going to cost me 3k at the least (trust me, it's not something you should do yourself if you like having free time), and at the end of the day, it'd be a five door ... OTOH keeping my car means I'll have a car that I can say I've done almost everything on, and I won't have the pain of selling a car that to me represents a shedload of hard work for 1500 quid or so, which is what I expect I'd get for it...
