Michael Fisher’s modified Citroen Saxo VTS
Remember the Citroen Saxo? For a time they were the pinnacle of modifying; they were two-apenny and usually accompanied by three tonnes of badly fitted, badly sprayed fibreglass bodykit. Seriously, what were we all thinking?!
The Saxo craze then died down for a few years, with no one (other than ex-Fast Car chimp Benny’s brown Euro Citroen Saxo number which earned iconic status in its own right) quite able to pull it off to bring the little French hatch back to the top of the modifying game. However, my Citroen loving friends, I’m pleased to say that’s all changed. Thanks to Michael Fisher’s carbed, tucked, smoothed, flocked and all-round fresh VTS, Saxos are well and truly back.
“I only got one because I just loved the shape and the way it went,” says the Milton Keynes mod god of his then boggo VTS purchase.
That was 2008, and it wasn’t the best start for Michael on the road to killer ride status… “I bought the car when I was 18, but got it home and realised I just couldn’t insure it until I was 21,” he says. “I was gutted, but I didn’t want to sell, so I garaged it for a few years.”
To buy a car and then just lock it away for so long takes patience of monumental proportions, but Michael had no choice and had to hoon around in a banger Corsa until he could get a fat green light for insurance on the dusty VTS.
From there, it was time to make up for two and a bit long lost years of modifying, and Michael didn’t hang about. What followed was a complete strip-down of the car to its very shell, before a mental rebuild included every nut and bolt on the car being taken out to be cleaned and polished. The result is an absolute masterpiece with charming Euro looks outside and a dashing track-led theme on the inside of this truly killer car.
There’s no prizes for guessing where his inspiration came from, either: “I liked the way Dubs do things so I decided to take my Saxo down the same subtle route, but with my own twists.”
The 22-year-old has done most of the work from home and incredibly has no qualifications in mechanics, just a sensible head and an epic will to learn to bang out the blinder of a ride everyone’s going potty over right now.
The car is just dripping with subtle touches – quite the reversal of what Saxos used to be famed for – as Michael took his ride above and beyond the normal levels of scene-friendly styling.
The ‘above and beyond’ mentality is what has brought the Saxo a shed load of admirers, as Michael explains of his homemade heaven on wheels: “There’s genuine love on the forums and in the scene for the car. I hear a lot of compliments even when they’re not directed at me, which is just amazing.”
Rightly chuffing so, we say – this Saxo is bang on the money and has us believing in the rebirth of a modifying icon all over again… The Saxo is alive, long live the Saxo.
