A labour of love

Now, it’s no secret that here at VWPI we do love a mk3, whatever the variation, hatch, estate or saloon.

But this Vento came to my attention again recently, what first took my eye was the colour, I knew it wasn’t a factory MK3 hue, but it looked right at home on this booted beauty.

I’ve known the car existed for a while, and I’ve kept up with the build as much as I could, and enjoyed seeing its progression at the hands of its owner, Richard. It’s not one of those wildly over the top builds, it’s subtle, classy and executed to perfection. But anyway, I’ll let Richard explain in his own words, enjoy MK3 lovers.

I got sucked into cars in general quite quickly. I don’t pick sides, I adore all of the good ones, like with everything in life.
The reason I got stuck with a VW is that in Hungary where I’m from, they are common and they are quite reliable before a certain period (I’m talking about you MK4 with your check engine lights!).
Joke’s aside I started with a cheap little runaround MK2 petrol Golf.

I loved it totally, I could service it myself with a couple of tools, but it didn’t make enough power and I always wanted a VR6 engined car. Doing an Engine swap was not an option as legally it is a complete disaster to register the car and get an MOT here.

So I started to look up other VR engined VWs, so the choice was the Vento.
I used to see one, in particular, every day on my way to school back in the day, and I fell in love with them. It is not the best looking VW for most, but I just loved it since I was a little one.
So the hunt began, obviously, there wasn’t any in the country in decent shape, so I had to dig deeper.
I eventually found the one for me in Switzerland.
Fully serviced, with all the paperwork, keys etc. It was a match made.

Its a 1992 model, so early spec, and I’m a proud owner of her for 8 years now.

I remember like it was yesterday, a couple of years after I got her, and after lots of planning and thinking I sat down with a couple of A4 sheets and started to write a list what I wanted to do on the car, this includes all the little nitpicky things.
I ended up writing 4 pages and at this point I can say that every last one of these boxes are ticked.

The car had a full respray, even though it was in good shape, I wanted something unique, so I have gone with a rare-ish Corrado colour, the light grey metallic, I’ve saved money for that for months, that was one of the reasons I have worked abroad.
I have hunted down a lot of rare (I know it’s commonly used) parts, some of them I hunted for, no kidding, 5 years, this being a mint pair of Votex side skirts (these are still waiting to be installed) and travelled 1200 km for a NIB Highline Votex steering wheel for example.

The MK3 was really a hit back in the 90s for aftermarket part distributors, they have made loads of accessories for them, so I was instantly hooked.
For example a couple I love the most:

Votex skirts, Bonrath mono wiper, Perana rear window louvre from South Africa, Rieger and Henry Lloyd lips, US parts, COX 628 SI front strut bar from Japan, Black Recaro CC seats, Wooden dash decor set, Various in pro taillights, ZKW fogs and Anni fogs, rare badges (Thanks to Luke over at UKMK3s :)) and the list goes on.
All of these parts are mint or in new condition, so you can say I was kinda addicted to collecting.

I’ve also hunted down the wheels in Ireland from a MK4 Supra after a couple of years of playing part detective, especially for my fitment, they are Autostrada Modenas, 17x8x8,5 Staggered and refinished/ colour matched with my car, also redrilled professionally to 5×100. Others dream about BBS RS’s etc, but these were the holy grail for me, as a 90s kid, the F40 was all over my wall, so these wheels resemble my love for that beast.
Also, I’m a massive Dragon Ball fan, you know that Japanese anime where everyone got stronger the bigger they shout?
So I planted some easter eggs on my car too, custom made a manga vinyl sheet and wrapped certain parts in the boot and also made a Capsule Corp. window sticker also colour matched.

For this year I let the coilovers go and built my own air ride setup, with Airlift V2 management.
I’ve never seen my car sitting nicer and lower, absolutely loved it the moment I was done with it.
When the guys at Airlift Performance shared my photos I was absolutely shocked. I was like jumping around at work and couldn’t believe it.

I never took the car to car shows before 2018 as I felt it wasn’t done, it wasn’t presentable.
But this year I went to two shows and brought two trophies home. And one is really special for me, as this fest/meeting is organized by the one and only VW magazine here in Hungary and I was a visitor a couple of times at a younger age, so this was the first time I was there with this car, and a couple of guys insisted that I enter the car for show and shine, and I really didn’t want to, as I’m not a show off kinda person. I never really did anything on the car because it was a trend at that time, I did everything for myself, the way I wanted.
So when the judges shouted my name for best of show.. I couldn’t believe it. So that trophy is really special.

It is no biggie for most but for a guy like me who had grown up in a, let’s say, modest environment in a small eastern european country, working on his car alone, none of my single friends are petrolheads for 8 years, not to mention the sacrifices I made to get this thing at this stage, this means the world to me, a massive appreciation to all the hard work I’ve put into this thing.

Richard

There we have it, folks, many thanks to Richard for taking the time to get a little bit of his Vento journey into words for us.