Back in late 2025 I drove to the Iowa border on the hunt for a new pick up truck. after I got to The farm the truck was at they were showing me around and I happen to see the rear hatch of this car sticking up over some storage bins inside of a pole barn. I did a little walk around open. The doors checked everything out realized for the most part was untouched rust free, and the interior was in great condition When I asked the information on the car, they told me he was sitting for about 10 years. It was their daughters. They took it to Chicago and somebody cut the cat off once they got it back. They never drove it again after digging for a little more information, turns out the daughter wanted to sell it, but they had to find the paperwork for it so mid February I got the call that the paperwork was found, and they were ready to get the car out of their barn because they’re ready to tear it down and rebuild a new one jumped in the truck right away drove back out there about two hours one way with a trailer and a buddy after filling up all four tires and having it run off of a jump pack,we got it onto the trailer. We’re strapping it down as we’re strapping it down. I looked underneath and found out they did not cut the cat off. they cut the muffler off. After getting at home, it sat for about two days before I was able to get it fully detailed after seeing the car cleaned up and seeing how good a condition the paint was I knew that this was the platform I was going to be building although a big learning curve because I was never a euro person I was always a JDM person, but I love hatchbacks. And nowadays in this economy of $500 barn find that runs and drives that’s rust. Free is unheard of so I couldn’t pass it up. Although completely new to this platform and this building style because I was very much a truck builder the professionals at Martini works made that learning curve smooth out and I appreciate that! Set me up with the perfect Konig wheel with some great general tires and some BC racing coilovers to help dial in the fitment much better and enhance the driving experience being this close to the Autobahn it makes it easy and fun to build something with that healthy balance of track and daily driving with this being phase one we have a lot of plans for over the winter and we can’t wait to see it all done.
