Way back in the day, I owned a 1991 VW 2l 16v GTi. While it wasn't my truly my first car, it was the first car I owned that I really wanted. I bought it slightly used when I graduated college and had it for 8 years, eventually swapping in a Corrado G60 motor. It was featured in the January 1997 issue of European Car magazine.
Since it had corrado power, I started to meet and hang out with the corrado folks, many of whom owned corrado vr6's. Which I was enamored with, I loved the way they looked and the smooth, sonorous power of the VR6 motor. Eventually I stupidly sold my GTi and ended up with my friends '93 Corrado. While he'd cared for it well and it was relatively low mileage, they can be fickle and needy.
That's NOT a good combination when you don't have the tools, space nor funds to address it. I was active duty at the time, so definitely didn't have the funds. The base I was at didn't have an auto shop so I didn't have access to tools or space. Yeah, that created a big issue! So as much as I didn't really want to, I sold the corrado and bought an Audi A4. It was a much better car for me at the time, especially since it was still under warranty.
Ever since then, as I've played with other German cars, I've always wanted another Corrado. For the past year or so I've started to look more in earnest. My first one was black with a tan leather interior, which I liked. I wanted a 93+ as they came with a much more updated and modern looking interior. I also didn't want a green one. Nothing against green, I just like the way the car looks in the other colors.
Of course for whatever reason, all the cars I was finding were green. I almost bought a nicely setup 1994 Corrado in January of 2020. It was Dragon Green, which I wasn't stoked about but the car itself was so nice I felt it was worth it. I had a PPI done and some small issues were found. I proposed splitting the costs with the seller and he balked. So I passed on it. Then Covid hit and I was closed down for 2 months at work and was relieved I hadn't bought a toy.
Once I was back at work and things were going well business wise I started looking again. I was dismayed to find that I couldn't find another corrado as good as the one I'd passed on for anywhere near the same price. Not only were the ones I was finding as much or more money but they had a long laundry list of issues.
I found one via happenstance on Rennlist and almost bought it. The owner owned several corrados and had for 30 years, he obsessively maintained all of them. I passed on this one because it had multiple accidents on the carfax and needed a full respray. My friend, who'd gone and looked at it for me ended up buying it. Then I thought I'd found another one but at the last minute the seller decided to keep it. I found another one locally, with no sunroof, which is very rare but was a 1992, not my favorite. I made what I thought was a very fair offer but the seller turned me down.
After stewing a little bit I went back to the seller I'd almost bought the one corrado from. I knew he had another corrado that he'd totally built up but last year he'd tossed out a number for it that I thought was too high. We talked about the car again, he sent me pics and a build list and we chatted about price. The price was much lower this time and we were able to work out a deal!
So I present to you my next project, which I hope to get here in May. He still needs to get a title for it and then I need to figure out how to get it here from the Boston area. I'm debating fly and drive but I don't have a ton of free time and it's a 3 day journey. Anyways, here's the car:
1993 Green Corrado VR6, 125k miles, clean carfax. Full windows out respray in a darker than OEM color, which I like much more. Canadian heated recaro interior, glass sunroof swap, Mk4 climatronic hvac sway, rebuilt motor, all suspension taken off, media blasted, painted, bushings replaced, new brakes, rebuilt window regulators and rear wing motor, H&R lower springs with Boge shocks, techtonics exhaust, techtonics 268 cams new in a box, AC gone through, european seatbelt swap, european headlights, more and more.
It has some needs, mostly small. I need to source the bezel for the climatronic hvac unit, get a shift boot and knob, new fog light lens, headlight bezels and lens (no longer made, ugh!) under hood insulation, drivers side mirror glass and address some paint issues on the drivers rear fender flare.
After that there are some period mods I'd like to do like add an upper front stressbar, a rear swaybar, install my momo steering wheel, install the cams and see if I can find a Schrick VGI intake manifold...
