I picked Taz up in Victoria BC last summer and most of the heavy mechanical had already been done, leaving me with the task of tweaking and refurbishing the rest.
His Wiring and interior was crap, tires....cheapos, exhaust...WTH were they thinking, etc. It's all in the details........
This is pretty much how he sat when I got him.
Day 3...after the long drive home
A couple weeks later after a good polish
The interior still looked like the inside of a rotting corpse.........
Nothing a whole new (to me) Jetta MKIII VR6 interior couldn't fix. This was a fun job. I had to hack 3 inches off each side of the rear seatback to make it fit and then hand stitch the covers back together. The front seats were a bit of a challenge as the floor brackets are quite a bit wider on the MKIII...nothing a hacksaw, tape measure and a welder can't fix, though.
Interior no longer looks like ass....
This is what the engine bay looked like before I started cleaning and painting. (well shortly after.....strut bar is removed here and I had already started partial disassembly for the winter) Note the absolute horrible wiring running everywhere in the engine bay.
Halfway through the engine bay refurbish project
A closeup shot of the new Jacobs Standalone Ignition system (thank you Santa) Battery has been replaced by a new Lightweight Deka Non-spillable and relocated to the trunk with a custom battery box and hand built cabling system.
Taz on the jackstands...theme coming together nicely with the new Iron Cross decals. (more on that in a bit)
The wheels were looking a little tired, so I refurbished them with a good cleaning and a new coat of Gunmetal on the centers. Topping it off with custom fitted VW center caps.
Next....dump the cheapo Hankooks and get a set of real auto-x tires Kumho Ecsta MX 205/40-ZR17's
and mounted on the car
Now, as to the theme thing...I had it in my head that I wanted to do a WWI fighter aircraft theme as I had seen (or heard) of an all black fighter that was in service on one of the fronts and thought that something understated like that would be interesting.
I came across this pic of an Albatross DIII flown by Adolf Von Tutscheck and knew it was exactly what I was looking for.
I think it comes together nicely with the wheels as the DIII was the first of the Albatross series using a V shaped wing strut.
Even without the Grill, Taz still looks mean
The engine bay is almost complete....new Jacobs wires are now installed. God I love E-bay!!!
Note Custom built rain tray panel and Radiator cover panel (flat black, of course). I will be spraying the hood flat black before spring to give it a more serious look.
Some of you may be wondering why I named the car Taz, well, with the .272 Schrick cam, he shakes and rumbles and sounds pretty much like the Tazmanian Devil from Looney Tunes....couldn't think of a more fitting name......
The specs:
17” ADR Lightning racing wheels, Kumho Ecsta MX tires, Koni adjustable coil-over suspension all around with 2” drop (current), 28mm anti-roll bars (front and rear), Front upper and lower strut tie bars, 11” cross-drilled rotors with Wilwood twin piston calipers (front), Rear disc brake conversion with solid rotors, braided stainless steel brake lines, Deka power sports battery and remote mount.
Engine: Balanced and blueprinted 1.7L 8v 4 cylinder bored and stroked to 2.1L, Shaved head and forged pistons (10.5:1 compression), 80mm Audi single butterfly throttle-body, Head ported and polished, .272 Schrick cam, HD valve springs w/Titanium retainers, 4-2-1 long tube header, stainless steel 2.25” exhaust with resonator and Dynomax turbo muffler, High performance 210mm clutch and lightened flywheel, Jacobs FC1000 standalone ignition with C4 High performance coil and secondary trigger resistor.
And more misc pics from the winter teardown (and I mean teardown)
.The HVAC system was still hoarding the big old heavy A/C heat exchanger and piping (a good 25 pounds worth of crap if not more) so..............
That sucker is in there bloody tight.
and it made a helluva mess ripping it out
But I got it.....
A quick closeup shot of the new door panels (yeah they're blue, but I was working on it)
Freshly redyed lower carpeting on the door panel
The custom leather emergency brake boot. (note Taz floor mats LOL)
picked this up on E-bay. Very hard to get a hold of these puppies for your CIS airboxes.
aluminum airbox eliminator to add a cold air intake and cone filter to your CIS injected rabbit. (Volvo 240 Turbos used to use them)
Should go well with all the extra piping and accessories I picked up as well
Reinstalled the grill, smoked the high beams, smoked turn indicators, blacked out the VW emblem. Coming together....spring is just around the corner (fingers crossed)
Pulled Taz out of the garage today to get a couple shiny shots and as a running joke that taz had never seen snow being from Victoria and all.
Taz, meet snow.....snow, this is Taz
You can't be old enough to be a Veteran? Can you? 
Im sure these kind folks will have plenty to say when they see your HOT cabby! 
. My 8 year stint in the airforce (88-96) qualifies me for free parking in just about any city in Canada. 
