In pictures: FailCar’s Peugeot 205 GTi

The 5^th of November 2010. A date I shall always remember. Maybe. Sending e-mails back and forth to someone on eBay while my girlfriend suggested I might want to be looking at the bloody fireworks display we had gone to see.

The next morning at the crack of dawn I was out the door to go and see it. That night a very original but a bit tatty Peugeot 205 GTi (57,000 miles) with one owner from new was in my mate’s storage barn.

Since then I have been keeping cool, (physically, not mentally), in said barn while restoring the 205 back to former glory. I was thinking about what to write here but to be honest I would probably just be regurgitating stuff that I have written in the previous two posts. If you have not seen the previous posts you can check them out here and here.

Anyhow in my first post I said “I will probably have one of the most original and tidy Peugeot 205 GTis on the road when it’s complete.”

Well I’m pretty sure I have achieved that and this gallery of images is just to show the final and pretty much completed project. Although I would like to get some mudguards…

[slideshow]

I have long thought about getting a 205 GTi and seeing @MajorGav purchasing the odd ‘tarting about’ fettling car genuinely inspired me. I have also since heard from @pawnsacrifice that the 205 has inspired him to restore his own 80s legend. A Porsche 924 S. If all this fettling about with classic petrolhead cars inspires more people to keep awesome affordable classics (that I think are in danger…) on the road then that makes me very happy indeed. It also makes projects like this seem all the more worthwhile.

I am going to hold off on ‘driving impressions’ etc for a future ‘Real World Review’ but yeah it’s awesome. In fact I would say it’s as good as a…er… 205 GTi #motoringcliché!

Oh and you didn’t think I would be able to hold off now the fettling bug has bitten did you? Say hello to my new project that I acquired in February. They tend to be cheaper when it’s snowing.

A Mazda MX-5 MKII 1.8 Sport. Now I shall go back to finding out how to explain I’m not selling the 205 and that I was lying when I said “Ah of course we will have space for another car…”