Turning to the dark side, Show car build

[Goodspeed]

Interested to see where this goes - so far I'm liking the wheel choice (suits the car really well IMO) and ride height - I wouldn't go any lower, really.  I think it looks great and sounds like its still functional.

Echoing what others said, a build like this has gotta be about all the little details.  Your old VW looked pretty awesome so I'm sure you already appreciate that - but I'm gonna yell at some clouds for a minute here.  When I was growing up reading every car magazine I could get my hands on, devouring car features online & attending whatever gathering I could, there was an explosion of activity (of course, being post-F&F) and a lot to see.  There was a lot of riff-raff, sure, but there were a lot of extremely well-built, high $$$ cars making the rounds of "tuner" shows back then.  A few of my favorites:

Joe Galante's Supra:

 


Alex Nguyen's RX-7:



Chris Musngi's Top Secret Supra: (tiny pic alert)




Obviously, I was more of a Japanese fan, but I really appreciated the Euro builds of the time too.  They both held a common trait - perfect, minute attention to detail.  Whereas the Japanese cars of the day were often extremely over the top & flashy to draw you in from a distance compared to the (usually) more subdued Euro presentation, what mattered was that once you got close enough to either car, you saw that every little nook & cranny had been poured over.  Rubber hoses replaced with braided lines & AN fittings, ARP hardware everywhere, wire tucks, perfect upholstery & stitching throughout, big brakes (I know, I know) and on and on.

Compare that with today, and from what I've seen, things have really taken a turn for the worse - at least stateside, in the Japanese category.  People are just tossing on eBay parts and calling their cars "showcars" and/or "builds".  They plastidip, sticker up, go for whatever shock-factor they can get from a distance, but once you approach the cars up close, you see that they're just thrown together with almost zero regard for the details.  Case-in-point: there was an Import Expo in DC recently that I was interested in attending, but after seeing the pics, I'm glad I didn't go.  There just seems to be a general pride that is now lost, and many don't seem to want to make the effort any more (or, perhaps more accurately, spend the cubic dollars necessary) to approach the quality that was prevalent 10-15 years ago.  White-lettered tires, bolt-on flares, cursive-text phrase stickers & yellow headlight covers a showcar does not make.

However, I will say that the silver lining to this malaise does seem to be the Euro world.  There's a lot of garbage at the likes of H2O, sure, but the overall quality of car shows seems to be relatively higher in terms of attention-to-detail in especially the air-cooled circles.  In Europe, it appears that things are similarly going strong with a greater percentage of people putting in actual effort across the board.  If you haven't seen this example already, look up anything on Speedhunters having to do with the Players show in the UK, for example, for a ton of inspiration:

Can a Hot Hatch Be a Hot Rod?




In the Name of Pride



Look Closer, There's Always More



Pursuing Perfection





...and so on.  I'm really interested to see where you take this (again, the old VW looked great) and it'd be awesome to see you take the car to near a "Player's" level.  I know it can be tough with parts being hard to source or just unavailable if your car isn't catered to, and going heavy into the custom route can be megabucks.  There's just a lot of pitfalls, I feel, that need to be avoided in going this route (basically, stay off eBay ) and stay on the course of the vision it sounds like you have in your head.  Also, if you want to do seats & a cage (I get it, it's really core to the Euro show scene) - try to stick with something like Schroth ASM harnesses, and a half-cage/rollbar, which you can then cover with dual-durometer SFI padding & alcantara, say.

But above all, enjoy the process and the end result, for yourself first and foremost.  The best showcars ever are those that are built to an exacting vision of the owner, loaded with details that set their brain's afire first - that they then love to explain and share with others.  Seeing that pride & dedication show through is often better than seeing the details and the overall product of the car itself.  The antithesis being the shoddily-built, fad-driven, stickered-up ("No Fat Chicks" next to their IG handle sticker, etc....vomit) cars that are purely attention seeking for their vapid owners that together, have nothing truly unique, passionate or interesting to show & share with onlookers.  It sounds like you're well on the track of the former path, & I'll do whatever I can to encourage you.

Good luck!  Again, can't wait to see what you do with the car