An 80's icon

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ian65
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Nov 14, 2011 6:27 pm
Location: Staffs

An 80's icon

#1 Post by ian65 » Sun Dec 13, 2015 9:33 pm

Last time I came onto this forum it told me I was banned :( Happily it seems that was a server glitch and I'm not really :D
As I'm now allowed back on, I thought I'd tell the story of my latest classic........

For the last couple of years I'd been thinking about selling my Jaguar...... it was an awesome car and put a smile on my face every time I drove it, even after six and a half years of using it as a daily driver but the downsides of running an XJR as a daily were ruinous fuel bills, regular expensive maintenance which invariably involved at least a day at a Jaguar specialist and high insurance and road tax costs and although I loved the car, I'd got tired of constantly shelling out...... most years it cost the best part of a grand to get it through it's mot and so I started looking around for something else to buy in it's place as a daily driver.

Modern cars do nothing for me and there’s nothing out there that I fancy without getting back into the cycle of expensive running costs again so about 18 months ago I began to think about buying a classic car in the shape of a Peugeot 205 GTI.
I’ve had 5 of these cars before, I’ve used them all as daily drivers and love them to bits…….. they are widely regarded as the ultimate 1980’s hot hatch and as well as being massive fun to drive with pin sharp, go cart handling and revvy engines, they are also quite at home in modern traffic as well as being very practical …… other big plus points for me are that they are cheap to run, great on fuel, cheap on parts and easy for me to fix myself…… as well as the styling still looking fresh and modern today, over 30 years since the cars launch.

I started looking seriously into buying one about a year ago and got a bit of a shock.
When I sold my last GTI back in 2000, although it was mint, I practically had to give it away and it took a few weeks to realise its £850 sale price. By the start of my search for one in 2014, the prices had gone through the roof and hardly any original clean cars were on the market.
As we know, these cars suffered terribly from the Max power generation as well as joyriders back in the 1990’s plus many more ended up being smashed up or turned into track cars, further reducing the number of decent cars available.
A quick check on ‘How Many Left’ showed that back in 2000 when I sold my last GTI there were approx 29,500 taxed on the road and by 2014 that number had dropped to 1500 which resulted in prices for the surviving cars beginning to rise rapidly….

Some speculative dealers have them listed for £15000 and at the other end of the spectrum, even rough dogs are fetching good money if they can pass an mot, as are project cars. Most original cars in excellent condition are fetching 6-10 grand.

This all meant that my thoughts of just going out and buying one were a bit naive and my search has lasted a year and consisted of checking the classifieds every week, the internet, owners forums etc and still nothing came up. With so few on the market, they are spread far and wide and I just haven’t got the time to travel hundreds of miles to look at a car.

Things changed a few weeks ago. As the Jag had recently passed it’s mot and was running well for a change, I got it valeted and put it up for sale planning on using my Elford Turbo for work until I found something else, This plan unravelled after 3 days when the RX7 engine blew up on the way home and then the next day I got a call from a bloke who wanted to view the Jag and 2 hours later came back with the cash and drove it away.
I was suddenly and unexpectedly left with no transport and then some thing wondrous happened….. a 205 was put up for sale just 25 miles away and looked from the photos and sounded from talking to the seller to be just what I was looking for. I few phone calls to the seller ensued to arrange a viewing and yesterday morning I went to see the car.
Being a sceptical kind of bloke, I wasn’t really expecting much but I needed a car and this was the first local GTi that had seemed worth viewing for about 6 months, so I went to see it.
It’s seldom that a car looks better in reality than in the photographs but this car looked superb.
I spent a good hour crawling all over it, checking everything I could and then test driving it and then realised that at last, my search for a 205 could be over……………………if I could do a deal that suited me.
Fortunately I did and scored the car for a great price.
As I couldn't drive 2 cars back home, I dropped a deposit on it, went back home, insured it with Adrian Flux for £164.00 full comp which was pretty good I reckon and then, with the very kind assistance of a mate, I went back in the afternoon, paid the rest of the money and drove it home. It's great to be back behind the wheel of one of these again, takes me right back.

Here it is parked on my front lawn the day I bought it….

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Plenty of 80’s interior goodness!....

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and an owners club sticker in the window… always a good sign….

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The car looks almost black in this light but it’s actually graphite grey metallic.
It’s a 1992 K plate 1.9GTI registered in Sept 1992 so just a month before they started fitting cats to these cars which sapped the power so this is the one to have.
It’s got a wad of receipts 2” thick going back 20 odd years detailing everything it’s had done to it.
3 years ago it had an engine build at one of the top Peugeot engine and performance specialists in the country and has done only about 3000 miles since.
I’ll be detailing the experience of owning this car in this thread…. hopefully it’ll be a happy one
1986 Mazda RX7 Elford Turbo
1992 Peugeot 205 1.9 GTi
2003 Mercedes 200 SLK Kompressor
My 1st gen RX7 website: http://www.rx7fb.com

Murray
Posts: 82
Joined: Mon Sep 23, 2013 6:28 pm

Re: An 80's icon

#2 Post by Murray » Mon Dec 14, 2015 1:04 pm

The 80's hot hatches are really creeping up in price, I was looking for a golf mk2 Gti and realised how much prices had risen.
nice looking 205 you have there.

Ian
Posts: 397
Joined: Sun Feb 10, 2013 6:17 pm
Location: Shrewsbury

Re: An 80's icon

#3 Post by Ian » Fri Dec 18, 2015 8:12 pm

Love it, the 205 is still a rapid car today
Strive for perfection in everything you do

jpsh120
Posts: 321
Joined: Mon Feb 21, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: An 80's icon

#4 Post by jpsh120 » Mon Dec 21, 2015 10:35 am

That looks lovely, what are the chances of finding one that good so close to home!

Reminds me of a school friend who's Dad got one of those as a company car just as we were all passing our tests. My mate came to pick me up in it one day and I was sooo jealous!

Great car and congrats on a great find :thumbs:
1971 Sunbeam Rapier H120

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eddypeck
Posts: 52
Joined: Thu Jun 04, 2015 1:05 pm

Re: An 80's icon

#5 Post by eddypeck » Tue Jan 12, 2016 1:19 pm

Murray wrote:The 80's hot hatches are really creeping up in price, I was looking for a golf mk2 Gti and realised how much prices had risen.
nice looking 205 you have there.

Not half, I've owned my 1986 Golf GTI nearly 3 years now, I spent 2 years trying to find one that was as close as possible to the one I had when I was 20 something. I only wanted it as a cheap fun runabout, and I could see there coming a point when it was now or never as I was going to be out priced. And since owning it I've watched prices continue to rise. Just as well really as my "cheap" fun runabout has ended up with pretty much a full restoration and has cost way more than it's current market value to do. Not that I plan on selling it but it would be nice to think my spending could be viewed as investment.

Lovely looking 205!
1986 VW Golf GTi, 1988 VW Golf GTi, 1993 BMW e30 318i Touring Lux

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JPB
Posts: 10319
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2011 3:24 pm

Re: An 80's icon

#6 Post by JPB » Tue Jan 12, 2016 1:42 pm

That is indeed a very pretty looking example. It's just as well that values of these are on the up these days or it may have ended up having the MOT welding carried out to the bare minimum standard and without any thought being given to the ongoing preservation of the car, which is exactly how I think that rising values work very much in favour of the cars and, although we all like a bargain, talking down values is responsible for survivor numbers dropping, a phenomenon that's currently very visible among the early nineties stuff which is often seen "restored" with a tube of Cataloy and an optimistic eBay description.
This one's certainly in good hands now, keep it up! :thumbs:
J
"Home is where you park it", so the saying goes. That may yet come true.. :oops:

plasticpenguin
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat Jan 09, 2016 1:56 am

Re: An 80's icon

#7 Post by plasticpenguin » Tue Jan 12, 2016 6:38 pm

The 205 GTI looks the bees...

Very few around that's in good condition.

My dream 80s classic would be, without question, a Lancia Delta Integrale. As with most classics, though, they sell for big bucks.

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