There are ways of building old-school Golfs that’ll please people and win you pats on the back. And there are ways of doing it that will split opinion – most people will be pissed off, while a handful will be really quite impressed. Simon Andrzejewski doesn’t particularly care either way. He just decided to seize the day and build the car he wanted to build…
There’s nothing wrong with mundanity, if that’s your bag. Some people just don’t want the hassle of thinking about things too much, so they go with the mainstream and move on to the next decision.
These are the people who paint the interior walls of their houses in default magnolia to save choosing a colour. Who stick on a Coldplay CD when they’ve got mates round because they just want a generic, anonymous background noise they can ignore. And who pave over their gardens because flowers and shrubs require decisions to be made. Their lives are simple and uncluttered.
They’re also not very interesting though, are they? Where’s the satisfaction in living an unremarkable life, never having the imagination to rock the boat? You’ve got to roll the dice a little, do unexpected things, get tongues wagging. Look at the case of Simon Andrzejewski, for example.
His day job involves detailing and polishing other people’s motors to a show finish, so do you think he feels like doing the same with his own cars? I should coco, matey. A ratty ride was way more up his street. Hell, it’d save a lot of time before shows if nothing else. And he certainly wasn’t about to mod a car in accordance with the rule book.
It was always bound to be a Mk2 Golf as well. For Simon, this was something that stretched all the way back to childhood.
“As a nine-year-old kid, my parents took me to VW Mania in Poland, back in 2000,” he recalls. “One of their friends owned an Oak Green big-bumper Mk2 with a VR6 turbo and Borbet As. I remember having the biggest grin on my face. Since then I knew all I wanted was a Mk2 Golf.
Fast-forward a few years and my first car was a 6N2 Polo that I lowered on some 14-inch BBS RAs, then I had a couple of Mk2s. One was a 1.6 Ryder, another was converted to run an ABF – which was really fun to drive, I still regret selling it. And around five years ago I met James from Auto Finesse, and he’s taken me under his wing and given me a job.”
You can see all of the pieces of the jigsaw shuffling into place, can’t you? While some people dream of owning Ferraris or Lamborghinis, Simon’s was a more achievable dream. “Don’t get me wrong, the supercars would be nice,” he smirks. “But the Mk2 was more realistic. And when I found out this one was built in January 1991, the same month I was born, that sealed the deal to go a bit mental at it.”
And go mental he did. Before the bleeding-heart purists mount their high horses, however, let’s be clear that Simon hasn’t killed a minter to create this artfully shabby creation…
Want to know more? Check out the full feature on Simon’s Mk2 in Fast Car magazine issue 380 on sale now in all good shops or alternatively download Fast Car magazine 380 now.
