Below is a quick summary of the car over the first 3 years of ownership before the modifications became serious

I started off looking for a car to learn to drive in. Looking about I loved the vtr kit, but insurance was a killer on vtr's so I was naturally drawn towards the Furio/Westcoast.

This is when I found this website and settled on the mk1 shape !!

Bought a 1999 Silver Westcoast with 57k for £2750 iirc.

Shortly after buying it, I put a piper 4" slash cut exhaust on it, vtr wheels, an induction kit and E-Tech strut brace...

Car is back on the road now. Taxed this morning and the insurance kicked in at midnight last night. LOVELY JOB!!

Taking it down to my cousins garage Whitley Garage next weekend for it's MOT and to fit the manifold and centre section back on, then all i have to do is get the front wheels balanced and she's ready for the Rolling Road day on the 13th.

bought the car standard in octoeber 2009 apart from the interior

some of my progress pics

spec

2002 vtr
raceland induction kit
piper 3" exhaust system
lowered 50mm all round on gmax springs
wind deflectors
15" o.z super turismo allo wheels
custom leather interior to match colour of the car





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September 2006... Drive Silverstone!

The TRAX show at Silverstone was going to be the last event of the year for my VTS. A fair amount of organisation was put into the event this year and for the first time ever, Saxperience had booked a track session on the infamous Silverstone circuit!

The car had already taken quite a lot of track abuse earlier in the year and I was happy it had survived long enough to let me experience this circuit! The session was not long enough to really learn the correct lines, etc so the drive wasn't as quick as maybe it should have been....

July 2006... Back to Bruntingthorpe

With the car ready for the track, myself and Graeme headed back to Leicestershire for the FCS hospitality day at Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground. It turned out to be a really great day with a huge variety of different cars out on track... Porches, Skylines, Caterhams, Merc's, Saxos, AX's, Clios, to name but a few.

I had borrowed Ant's rally-spec camera mount, so we were fortunate enough to get plenty of in-car video footage of our antics! (check out the Premium Member video section.)

It was good to catch up with a few...

June 2006... Time for bigger stoppers!

I had great fun in the car whilst out on track, but the brakes having been upgraded to Peugeot 306 GTi-6 discs, were still not upto the job! Very quickly whilst blatting around the track at speed, brake fade would creep in, meaning that I'd have to ease off the go-pedal!

After a quick chat to Garreth at G.S Motorsport, I ordered some stoppers that shouldn't suffer brake fade... in fact I was more worried about the car over-braking! After waiting for a week or two my new brakes arrived... a pair of Hi-Spec 325mm 2-piece discs...

Finally almost everything saxo related is gone. Feels soo good to have lots of money in my saving and one less car to worry about.
What shall i do next hmmmmmmmm.... watch this space

May 2006... Shafted, yet again!

Myself and a group of Saxperience members arrived at Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground for our 3 hour track action. The session was being run as an open pit session, so we could go on and off the track as many times as we liked during the 3 hours.

Every time I went out on track I took a different passenger with me... as everyone was keen to have a ride in the car! The weather had been a bit hit and miss all day, sometimes the sun would be out and other times it would be raining.

The last session of the day was just after...

April 2006... Gearing up for Bruntingthorpe!

The French Car Show was getting better and better as each year passed and this year a trackday had been arranged for the day prior to the show event. Saxperience booked half of the day's session at Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground. All I had to do now was get the car ready for some track action!

The ICE was ripped out of the rear of the car and stored in the shed; it wasn't likely that it would ever make it back into the car, but it would make a good install for someone else one day!

With the boot stripped...

February 2006... Another year begins.

I didn't get upto much with the car over winter. It was too wet and cold to be motivated enough to work on it and with the salty roads everywhere, even cleaning it seemed like a waste of time. But soon enough, winter had passed and spring was on the doorstep!

One morning I moved the car in the driveway to find a little pile of oily grease on the tarmac. A quick check under the car confirmed that the drivers side driveshaft CV boot had failed! This was more than likely due to the rubber gaitor twisting earlier the previous year,...