Why I bought a GTI and How I found the perfect ONE!

My love for cars has an amazing story, my dad introduced me to love cars from a young age.

I have been stuck on the sound and the smells of cars since I can remember.

The car that started my real love affair, of the thing that takes me to school everyday, was a champagne colored Golf 2 GTi that my dad had bought in 1985.

I used to remember how that car looked and remembered the thrilling rides taking me from a short trip to the shops or dropping me at my daycare (I must just point out I hated daycare), I would have much rather loved to stay in the GTi. This was also my 1st car I was dropped of when I went to school. Coolest kid in my eyes.

This was my dream car, I wished when I grew up that I would be able to own one.

I made that dream a reality in a very long search whilst living in the UK, I found a red one with perfect interior and not messed with for an incredible 500 quid.

We used it as a daily driver when we were working night shifts and used it to travel to Scotland. There was a huge accident on the highway on our way there and we were stuck on the Great North Road travelling to Fort William. We were stuck on this road for about 5 hours.

By the time we were released from the traffic nightmare, it was getting late and we hit the GREAT Scottish highlands in the dark with rainy weather.

The car was absolutely excellent in these conditions, taking every corner at a decent rate of knots and making me feel confident enough to push on. My passengers were all a sleep at this time and I could concentrate on enjoying the moment for the rest of my life.

This was the most memorable of all the trips we used the GTi for, the normal run of the mill going to visit family in Peterborough was fun as any B-road was always enjoyable.

Then the Golf life sort of disappeared, I thought it would be great to drive other cars in the meantime, but that is another story.

My search and affection for the GTI remained and I decided I needed something fun to drive in 2019. As everyone is well aware of the pandemic for me to add to that story would just be boring.

I decided to start looking for a decent Mark 5 GTI as I wanted one. The Mk5 has always been classified as the ONE, it brought the GTI name back from the slowness category being able to compete with it's peers. The Mk5 has also retained the icon status by still being fast in 2020 when I started looking at them again and slowly but surely convincing myself to get one. Speaking to "car people" they all told me to find a decent one is going to be impossible, but I like a challenge and started looking for them on every available second hand website that I could think of. I tried We buy cars, I checked cars.co.za, I clicked on OLX, I finally looked at Autotrader.co.za and found the GTI of my dreams. It was Red and it was close by, what a disaster. Then again, whole process clicking paging, following, notifying....Found the One!

It was a 2009 Golf GTI DSG with low mileage and being sold by an Audi Dealership in Johannesburg, I thought, Blikskottel this is the one, it looked amazing on the photos. I saved all the photos of this car on my phone and made an appointment to go view this car.

The service from the sales person was great, gave me confidence and here I go.

Well friends this is where it all went wrong, I waited at the prestigious Audi dealership for them to bring this car around as it was being washed, just for me. When I saw it my heart sank into my socks, I could see the colour differences on the fenders, I noticed that it did not look lekker? The car had trims missing inside it, the sales person could not give me answers on questions and they were very "hardegat" about the price. I did not even go for a test drive.

Feeling very disheartened, I thought about the other car on my list and thought, let me try this one. It was a private seller and he did not answer my call the 1st time.

Not even 10 minutes later he phones me back and tells me he is actually selling the car on behalf of his friend, He would need to find out where the car is and phone me back. I received the call back and it was within 5 km of my current location. Spoke to the owner of the car and he said come over, it is not actually ready but seeing that I am that close why not.

My heart skipped 2 beats when I arrived at the location given to me by the owner. It was at his work and the vehicle was parked outside, BTW normal parking lot nothing special. But did she look Good!!

I patiently waited for the owner to come but, I fell in love by just looking at her. This car was clean, no paintwork defects, I sneaked a peak at the interior, perfect, it was standing there calling to me, telling me I am the one. I had to keep a straight face, when the owner arrived, he was very polite and offered a quick test drive as he had to get back to work, no questions, I just jumped in and he drove us up the road, probably 2 km's but holy cow, they were perfect, no harsh acceleration, no "kyk wat kan die een doen boet" , just a gentle trip. We stopped at a housing complex and we got out to discuss the car, I opened all the parts that could be opened, but as before the car shocked me in the fit and finish, remember this is a 2008 car in 2020.

The owner asked if I would like to drive back to his work and I casually declined the offer. You are probably going WHAT?? Well, one road down I said to him no, I need to drive this car.

I got behind the wheel and gently drove down a straight piece of road, no issues, I asked if I can push a bit, hahahahaha, thinking about it now, I probably pushed in second gear to 4000 rpm's then going, no need to do more. We swopped seats and he said, do you like the car? My smile probably gave away my impressions of this car as he just laughed when I told him I love this car.

We agreed on the price and all the paper was done, I collected her from a car wash in a shopping center basement, as I could not wait anymore, (I know it does sound dodgy) , but it was all OK,

I am now the proud owner of the Perfect Golf Mk5 GTI.

My dream came true. I found the ONE.