When Mike picked this beauty up, it was in it's original guise as a 55bhp, 1.6 diesel utility vehicle. What he's done to it is a measure of what's possible with some ambition, and a 'have a go' attitude.

First things first, it was fully stripped and sandblasted, and given new doors, wings and bonnet. It was then delivered to his own garage for a respray in what was supposed to be TT Nimbus Grey, but upon opening the tin, was greeted with something a tad greener. Not put off by this, on it went. Considering this was Mike's first attempt at painting, he's done a fantastic job.

Atfer the shell was ready, the hardware was to be installed, so on went a Mk3 Golf VR6 subframe, with PAS rack, Mk2 Golf bottom arms, FK coilovers, G60 calipers with Green Stuff pads with drilled and grooved discs, to assist in the stopping. It was going to be required, as the engine was next.

Filling the bay now is a 2.8 VR6, from a 1993 Golf, with one or 2 added goodies. 8:5:1 C2 Motorsports spacer in the head for compression, home-made intake manifold, Bosch 440cc injectors, K&N filter, Tial wastegate, HKS dumpvalve, and intercooled, modified from a Madza RX7, Viper silicon hoses, Magnecor leads, not to mention the small matter of a Garret GT3076r turbo to spice things up a touch. Mike also relocated the brake servo and master cylinder to the drivers side, and modified a Mk2 Golf antiroll bar to fit on the rear beam.

Helping the gases out is a SPA exhaust manifold, with a custom-made 3" stainless syatem. Managing the whole system is a job given to Omex, and for getting the power down, a Quaife LSD helps everything go a bit more smoothly.

To finish, a set of Ronal Turbos finish the look, but it needs to be seen (and heard) on the move. Incredibly smooth, effortless acceleration, with the background music of 6 pots and a turbo spooling up is manna for the soul.

Currently dyno'ed at 305bhp (340ftlb torque), but there's more to come. Watch this space.