MR2 Drivers Club North West Region

Written by Karen Farrimond

How The “Other Half” Mods

The DC have been asking for articles on modifications to members’ cars, so I thought I’d do one from the point of view of “the other half” (male or female).  You devote so much attention to your cars I thought I’d try and grab some of it back.  It is slightly in retaliation for all those little incidents that almost pass by without notice, you know the ones I mean – when the driver gets a new exhaust on the car and the other half gets a set of earplugs from the garage by way of apology, when the driver starts work on the car in the early evening and the other half goes to bed at 11 pm and he’s still out there, and the other half wakes up at 6 am the following morning and he’s still in the garage with the car, when a friend teasingly threatens to throw a bucket of dirty water over his “beloved” and there’s just that extra fraction of a second before he acknowledges that beloved = wife, and not car.  (Not all of those examples are me and mine, some belong to other people).  So here goes:

 This is the story of Allan’s red imported N/A Mk2 T-Bar bought earlier this year when he decided that he didn’t want to spend any more money on the MK1 we had at the time.  Buying a newer MK2 would be less expensive in the long run was his reasoning.  Some of what follows may be a bit in the wrong order but you’ll get the general idea.

 First off was a respray.  OK, I’ll go along with that, makes the car one shade all over and takes out the odd blemish.  No problem.  Next he decided he wanted to do up the interior and have leather seats and side panels in the doors.  To save money he decided to buy the leather, black for the main part of the seats and red for the bit in the middle and the door panels.  His mother would make up the seats on her sewing machine and all it would cost him would be time spent tiling her new conservatory.  Unfortunately, his mother’s sewing machine won’t sew leather thick enough for seats, so now we’re waiting for the nice lady at church (professional seamstress with industrial sewing machine) to finish her current project and then we’re next on her list.  In the meantime I’m riding round on a seat with a cheapo cover and no support that’s more like a mediaeval instrument of torture than anything else. 

 Next came the steering wheel.  He had a square, racing type, steering wheel on the MK1 which he removed and put on the MK2.  Before he did it he decided to strip off the black paint and take it back to the metal underneath.  Looks great, the only thing is that if you’re traveling in the wrong direction and it’s one of those rare sunny days, there’s a chronic glare comes off it. 

 After that, the mod that gave the car it’s nickname “The Stripe”.  A wide silver stripe going all the way from the front bumper, up and over the bonnet and roof, down across the engine bay, boot and rear spoiler and back under the rear bumper.  See pictures.  The neighbours think he’s mad by the way.

 Now, the guys in the North West MR2DC have started calling him Faz or Fazza (our surname is Farrimond) and browsing through the Auto Trader one day, as you do, he happened across the page with Irish registration plates for sale and saw one that was FAZ 1962.  I’ll let you guess what year he was born.  Suffice to say the car was re-christened shortly afterwards.  The neighbours are convinced he’s mad now.

 Next came brake calipers.  He bought some calipers off a 1994 turbo, refurbished them and painted them red to match the car.  Mind you, he spray painted them, in the garage, where the tumble dryer is.  And the dryer works by bringing in air from outside, air full of teeny tiny particles of red spray paint…. Luckily it was just the sheets and luckily the marks weren’t that bad.  Of course, what happened when one of the refurbished calipers seized is a whole other story and far too long to include here.

 Since I kept complaining about the uncomfortable ride in the car this was a good excuse to have a new suspension system with lowered springs and adjustable dampers.  At least I think that’s what he said, can I have it in English next time please?  Then the man who fitted it did it wrong and the car had to go into Demon Tweeks for emergency surgery.  Then it’s a case of trying to get the money paid out at Demon Tweeks back from the guy who fitted the thing in the first place.  To be fair, he paid up like a gentleman and sacked the mechanic who’d made such a bodge of it.

 Back to the interior again.  Decided to pick out parts of the dashboard in silver.  Not a bad idea except that Halfords silver dashboard spray isn’t.  Silver, I mean, more sort of like a dirty grey.  Cue sulk, cue visit to every model shop within a twenty mile radius to try and get some proper modeling silver spray paint.  Found some eventually, dashboard does look pretty good actually.

 The next modification was the fault of Tatton Park.  The theme for our stand was Formula 1, and the modified cars were lined up on a grid.  The Stripe was at the front, sort of acting as pace car.  So he decided he wanted flashing lights in the front headlights and the rear brake lights which could be switched on and off whenever he felt like it.  Anyone who visited us at Tatton will have seen the lights winking away trying to attract the crowds.  They worked, “Faz” won best MR2 Mk2 in show.

 Finally, the exhaust.  All right, I admit it, the exhaust was my fault.  He borrowed my sensible car for the day and I drove the MR2.  The conversation when I got home from work went something like:

Me:  I was driving your car when I either hit a pot hole or drove over something and I heard this really horrible noise coming from the back, but then it stopped and I didn’t see anything, and when I got to work I did check and everything seemed to be ok.

Him:  That’s ok, no problem.

Me:  By the way, you did have just the one tail pipe on the exhaust didn’t you?

He took it really well I thought, he didn’t shout or anything.

Mind you, since I offered to pay for a replacement he did take advantage and have a made-to-measure, stainless steel one, twin 5” tailpipes, 128 decibels, fitted (hence the earplugs mentioned above). Just tell the garage to ring me when they want paying, says I, thinking please God let me be on the phone or in a meeting when they do.  No such luck.  24 hours after the exhaust has been fitted he says, I’m going to have to take that exhaust off again you know, it needs a good polishing.  Aaaaarrrrrgh!!!!

 So there we are.  At least there is a grin factor.  The car stops boys of all ages in their tracks at 20 paces and max muppets in their “souped-up” Corsas go green with envy at the exhaust note.  By the way, you do remember that he bought this car because he didn’t want to keep spending money, don’t you?  And has all this put me completely off the MR2?  Not exactly, I’m saving up for a Roadster.