The Projects

This is a 2002 VW Lupo. It's a 1400cc turbo diesel sport. It's not so much of a project, but a daily driver for my girlfriend. It is lowered on coil over springs, it has been chipped to 100bhp. It is fun to drive, handles great & goes really well. It is the most fuel efficient car I have ever been in.
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This is how it looks at the moment. It is sitting very low which makes it handle great. It does make it pronr to catching speed bumps though. It may have to be raised a little.
The side skirts make the car look even lower. I am not sure if these will stay yet or not. They might have to go to avoid them getting damaged. I will see how it goes once the ride height is adjusted. It might look smoother without them.
The rear bumper has been colour coded on the botom half. It makes for a much cleaner look. The center of the badge has been colour coded too.

The front end has been treated to a new lower bumper too. It sits a bit lower & wider than the original & is now colour coded too. Both lower bumpers are normally black plastic. Future plans are to debadge the front grille & weld up the bonnet cut out it will leave behind.
The interior is lush, Considering this is supposed to be acheap run about. The sport interior is very good. The seats are so comfy & the dials are great. There is a DVD with free view digi-box fitted at the moment, but this will be removed to fit a standard CD player. It has the factory alarm & immobilser.
The rims are OZ Routes. Route mean wheel in Italian. These are a rare item & will be kept for safe keeping. I have a set of Porsche teledials I will fit in their place. I will have some custom center caps made for the OZ's as they are missing. I will polish the wheels once they are off of the car.
All in all we are quite impressed with this little car. It has plenty of power, will do 100mph if you need to & will return over 65mpg. It has a full stainless steel exhaust system which is not too loud. Watch this space for a few changes...
I have a choice of wheels at the moment. I can use thes 7x15 Porsche Teledials, with the 165/50x15 tyres stretched on them. I have adapters on their way too. This will keep the car's Euro look & not make it too different tahn it is now. I have had these powder coated in Chrome Silver. They look good & could be the way to go. They are fairly cheap these days & is not such a big deal if they get damaged. The powder coat is hard wearing for every day use.
My other option is to use my Corrado G60 alloys. I just had these powder coated in full gloss black. I need to paint the outer lip silver to make them stand out. The all black is too strong for the car. I don't have any center caps for these which is a shame, I will have to look out for some. These rims would bolt straight on without any fuss. I am not sure if I will use these yet.
There is another option, I have the Cookie Cutters going spare as I have a new set of wheels for the bay. I don't know if these would suit the Lupo or not, so they have only a slim chance of being used.
Well, The teledial won, and wow. I didn't think the unloved rim would ever look good on any car, but they were almost made for this car. It is in keeping with the Euro look style too.
I had to raise the ride height a little for every day use. it stil catches on the meanest of speed bumps or a savage bit of road if driven hard.

The silver powder coat is a good choice of finish it is easy to clean with a sponge, and gives a nice finish. I had to use a set of adapters to fit them as the stud patterns are different.

This was not much of a project really. We haven't done hardly anything to the car for ages. The Phirm fitted a new cambelt for my to keep the engine safe, it just gets used daily now...
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