Following the engagement between me and my beautiful fiancée, we were discussing wedding cars and chauffeurs, and because the wedding car only picks the bride up in the morning, it leaves me and the best men needing a car.
I met my fiancée through Nathan (Nath89) and I met Nathan at a Saxo meet when were around 18, so we thought it would be a good idea if, rather than us getting a taxi or driving our own cars to the church, we could a Saxo, modify it in to something we would’ve driven at 18, and drive it to the church as a sort of tribute to our friendship, and me meeting my future wife. From there, the best men would drive the Saxo to the venue, whilst I go in the wedding car with my wife.
The idea grew and we ended up the a plan to buy three Saxos, one for me, and one for each of the best men, Nathan and Grant.
So here’s car 1 of 3. A 2001 Mk2 VTR in Icelandic Grey. We picked the car up from a local lad who was selling it as he received it in PX against a motorbike. The car is almost completely standard and has done a 183k with no paperwork or service history. It’s a bit rough around the edges and will need some tidying up to get it looking nice again. But it is rust free, feels solid, and looks in decent condition mechanically. It's only had one owner for the majority of its life which hopefully suggests it was looked after.
The first job was to treat the car to a much needed service and start building up some history. When we jacked the car up we managed to get a good look underneath, and it looks as though the car has had a new exhaust front and centre section, and a new rear beam less than 12 months ago.
After an engine flush, fuel filter change, spark plug change, oil filter change and a new headgasket seal, the car was running much better. We removed the airbox and temporarily fitted a K&N closed cone air filter straight on to the throttle body, along with an oil crank breather. We then removed the spare wheel and cut out the spare wheel cage and retaining bolt. We also stripped the car of anything we wanted painting, which was the front grille, rear badges, mirror caps.
The car seems to have been fitted with some aftermarket alarm / tracker / blackbox and has unterminated wiring loom all over the place, along with a button on the dash near the passenger foot well and an LED in the button blanks. Both of which weren’t connected to anything. There’s also a small box under the passenger foot well, screwed in to the metalwork.
The car came fitted with a CD player but no face plate. We removed that to fit a new Phillips CD head unit, and realised there was an electrical grounding issue which we traced and resolved. We then trial fitted an audio build ready for installation once the car had been cleaned. Finally we removed the 1950s leather interior and door cards (now for sale), along with the engine lagging and front headlights, ready to be painted.
Project Wedding Sax - car #4 Rallye resto
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Mick 'Big Duck' Swan
Hybrid Mode
