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Dear All, Well, it's taken me a while, but I have finally managed to lay my hands on a nice 'Cherry Red' (currently orange!), phase 2 GTI. She runs pretty nicely (although the idle is lumpy - nothing a good clean out won't sort), and she's just shy of 100,000 miles, so not bad! Unfortunately, she's been defiled by a baseball cap wearing boy racer, and has a few, less than original modifications. Namely: Stupid jet nozzle exhaust back box. Ridiculous myopic eye headlights. Perspex sunroof bubble! An abundance of carbon fibre effect vinyl, and to top it all off, An invincible class aircraft carrier ski jump spoiler, cunningly fashioned from foam rubber and sikaflexed onto the rear hatch (I curse you for that!) I now plan to strip her down (removing all of the abominations), give her a general tidy up. and get her a full respray. The only mods will be the triple air-horn and klaxon out of my now defunct GTX (god only knows where I'm going to put them!) and a modest CD player. Here's some pictures. She actually looks much tidier in these shots than up close (but it was an incredible day today!) Can anyone tell me the story behind this type of reflective boot trim? Obviously it's very different from the more common black slatted type, but does it have any significance? I can't decide whether I like it, and as the bloody stupid spoiler is going to be such a bitch to remove, I did wonder whether it would be easier just to switch the entire tailgate for another? Is this sacrilegious, opinions please!? And look at this abomination! There's a bit of rust forming around the rear passenger's wheel arch, which I need to get on top of in a hurry. This appears to be where the panel is coming away from the arch, and there's a bit of water getting in. Fortunately, I don't think it's gone too far yet, so I was planning just to clean it down to bare metal and treat it with rust killer. I was then going to re-attach the panel with tigerseal and clean-up, prime and paint. Would you agree that this is a suitable approach? Any advice is welcomed. Shot of the damage from inside. As I said, I think it's quite early on, so I should be able to kill it without chopping anything out! If you're reading this, and the below is your handiwork, my apologies, but you should be ashamed of yourself! And here's the noisemaker! All round I'm pretty chuffed, she's in pretty good nick. I've owned her for just over 24 hours, and already two people have tried to buy her from me! I have never been this cool! Any advice, tips or just comments on the above would be most welcome. Cheers, Mike