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I was thinking about this on the way into work in the sunshine after a weekend of spannering my own. What would be the ultimate incarnation of my own 205 GTi, within reason, whereby you’re not throwing money at it to the point that you’d honestly be better off with a Lancia Delta Integrale. What I’m aiming for, I suppose, is the ultimate fast road GTi. Improved certainly, but not exactly a caged, 300bhp, 320lbft sprung (you know who you are ) machine. It should be taken as given that all the rubber, suspension, arm, spinning and turning bits are either new or in fantastic condition I came up with the following spec. Engine 1905cc Mi16 alloy block Restored to factory, new shells, reground valves, rings etc. Steel sump with pump extension Hitachi hi-torque starter Cone filter, maybe standard 405 airbox. Slight skim. High lift cams 4-branch manifold Stainless exhaust Motronic 3.2 management for reliability & ease of repair. 5-speed 1.6 close ratio gearbox with diesel 5th Interior Completely standard bar a complete refresh with the seats retrimmed in OMP/Sparco fabric around the outsides with the ‘pattern’ bit from the original screens retained. Pioneer 3-way speakers in the factory locations. Non oxygen copper wiring for the speakers throughout. Blaupunkt Seattle MP72 head unit with aux in (woah, futuristic man) and a Bluetooth receiver with the buttons/display tuned to match the orange/red 205’s interior lighting. In other words, a completely ‘factory’ looking interior, but looking like it could belong in a Peugeot showroom in ’92 albeit with far more durable seats and a hell of a lot better sound quality without adding weight. No amps, subs, 6x9’s… Electronics Completely new custom wiring loom all round, but Arduino microcontroller powered. An Arduino Mega undeneath the steering column that connects to another in the engine bay and a single length of CAT5 cable slung between both. No more tracing electronic errors required and a considerably lighter loom. Eg. The interior fan on a pulse width modulated set-up. Plug in a laptop and away you go to tweak settings and repair where necessary. Suspension Complete refresh with Bilstein B4’s all round, Eibach progressive springs on the front. Custom lower arms with standard rubber bushings but the ability to change the balljoints independently from the arms with 306 items. Hollow cast 306 hubs. New torsion bars and a refurb’ed rear axle on the rear with grease nipples. Drum brakes for simplicity on the rear. Frashly hot dip galvanised subframe with the lower arm mounts reinforced. Braking 306 HDi on the front, standard rears, with the usual uprated master cylinder and a larger gauge vacuum hose to the normal fluffy one This is just a personal preference. I hate the fluffy one Weight Reduction Narrow japanese battery on a custom aluminium mount behind the gearbox, flat against the firewall where the expansion tank normally goes, leaving the space where the battery normally is for the Mi16’s induction. Aluminium bumper brackets all round. Smaller Japanese alternator, lower capacity. Steel sump / alloy radiator. As many of the little brackets that hold little bits and pieces converted to aluminium/stainless as possible as an anti rust measure as anything else. Plastic XU10 inlet manifold. Bodywork Completely factory standard looking. That’s where the similarities end All of the plastic panels repainted in matt black. All of those annoying rusty little bits and pieces, like the front foglight surrounds, hot-dip galvanised, POR15 base coat, couple of coats of primer and then a top coat in the factory colour. New red inserts all round painted in a particular deep shade of red normally found on Daewoo’s (I’m serious ) and about eight coats of lacquer. The shell would be a standard non-sunroof, stripped to the last, then hot dipped, POR15 over the top, primer, alpine white. I would have a man with a shotgun stand over the paint process to make sure there was no filling and sanding which scored through the galvanise on the final prep. Lots of underseal with the front inner wings properly bonded… I do realise this is the nerdiest thread ever. Forgive me.