Ok, so this car was obtained by pure luck. Practical Classics Magazine ran a prize draw along with Amazon which I'd entered and several months later was informed that I was the winner. I went to the Practical Classic workshop to collect the prize and drove it home 😄
It's a 1988 8v GTi Campaign edition and Practical Classics had done a fair amount of work on it (as can be seen on Youtube). Yes it had a few things that still needed looking at but overall it's a car that's in great condition (the bodywork is fantastic).
I noticed on the drive home from collecting the car, that the odometer wasn't increasing (speedometer works though) so until I fix that it won't be gaining miles. The fuel flap doesn't sit flush, but it still locks if I push it shut when locking the car. One of the dash bulbs has blown so I can't see the rev counter or fuel gauge properly in the dark, and some of the roof trim isn't sitting quite right.
All little jobs that I should be able to tackle myself once I've sorted the head gasket that blew in February 2026 (fortunately close to home) which may also explain the one big issue I'd noticed with the car, namely, it was not happy at low revs and kangarooed down the road on light throttle between about 1850 and 2200 revs (at any other engine speed it was fine). I had started looking at this issue checking timing (it was fine), the idle speed (was a bit high and things improved a little when lowering it) and giving the idle control valve a decent clean (again, slightly improved things). Next step was to check for vacuum leaks which I will do once the head gasket has been sorted.