Vauxhall VX220 2.2 N/A
Discussion
Well..
Following on from
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
I got myself a flyin' banana
It's bloody yellow.. I saw this advertised on PH / AT about 2 weeks ago and semi discounted it due to it's bananariness, however i revisited it a few days ago as it fitted all of the criteria I wanted. Details are:
2.2 n/a
registered 16/09/2002
59.6k with 9 service stamps in the book
6 previous keepers
A seemingly highly cherished car and very looked after by it's former custodians
very good overall condition with no discernible wear on the drivers bolster and largely un-fettled (more on that in a min)
The car was in Essex so off me and a pal set @ 4am to get there for around 9am ish. The car was as described and a quick test drive confirmed I was having it, although the roof was off and it was bloody cold in Colchester this morning
On the test drive I had to very quickly re-calibrate my expectations of how a car should feel. We'd wafted up in the heated leather luxury of the 330i. Going from that to a go-kart with a roof was a culture shock and initially I was all
. That quickly passed though and on a tree banked straight just outside of town I gave it a good workout and it clicked - what a fantastically fun little toy. the 2.2 revs eagerly and the ratios seems to be very well chosen for the application. There's always torque and with it being so light; about 870kg I believe, it picks it's heels up and goes whenever it's asked to. Superb little machine.
I quickly looked over all the history/paperwork, all 3 inches thick of it - (great to have) and the deal was done. I was very happy with the exhange.
The drive home - eeehhhh
absolutely nothing wrong with the car but 4 hours on the m25 and m4 it was definitely not built for. As you can imagine the seats are excellent for purpose but not for spending hours in just cruising, me and my mate were like - are we home yet? after about half an hour I must say though even that being said it was faultless on the return journey, very swiftly got into 3 figures and stayed there for as long as I could stand the wind noise and dropped back to a very comfortable 70mph cruise at just over 3k in 5th.
I've just finished going over the paperwork and I note a few things. On the drive home when accelerating hard there was an awesome induction raw. Induction kit I thought - seems it's got a K&N cone filter and piping on it, sounds great, will look into the practicality of it. Also it seems to have a stage 2 remap carried out by Thorney Motorsport
it certainly goes well.
Following on from that it has a Milltek exhaust which sounds lovely, not too loud on cruise but comes alive when the revs rise
aand - last but def not least - brand new Nitron NTRs
fitted about a month ago. Rather expensive I've been told by a Nitron sponsored VX racing driver friend, which I'm over the moon with; they're not even dirty from road grime - hopefully he can have a look at the settings and make sure they're set up correctly; which I'm sure they are.
All of the mods are backed up with receipts and fitting invoices which compliment a huge folder of history from Vauxhall/Lotus specialists etc accounting for £1000's spent on the car over its life. It's great to see invoices for replacement alternator/replacement discs & brake pads/cooling system flushes/lots of major services inc' brake fluid changes included etc, new plugs recently etc etc (along with a full service carried out by PSR Automotive 1,500 miles ago) and brand new oem Bridgestone tyres fitted all round.
Over all I'm over the moon with it, I may even grow to love the colour
I have a few plans for performance for it but for now - a full wash tomorrow (who would have guessed?) and to drive/enjoy it.
and it fits in the garage with no modifications needed - apart from removing the number plate
a nice little bonus found in the boot
(all pictures are pre wash and I accept no responsibility for the mud/filth currently present)
bloody sparse in here
can just make out the Milltek etching
more tomorrow
Following on from
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
I got myself a flyin' banana
It's bloody yellow.. I saw this advertised on PH / AT about 2 weeks ago and semi discounted it due to it's bananariness, however i revisited it a few days ago as it fitted all of the criteria I wanted. Details are:
2.2 n/a
registered 16/09/2002
59.6k with 9 service stamps in the book
6 previous keepers
A seemingly highly cherished car and very looked after by it's former custodians
very good overall condition with no discernible wear on the drivers bolster and largely un-fettled (more on that in a min)
The car was in Essex so off me and a pal set @ 4am to get there for around 9am ish. The car was as described and a quick test drive confirmed I was having it, although the roof was off and it was bloody cold in Colchester this morning
On the test drive I had to very quickly re-calibrate my expectations of how a car should feel. We'd wafted up in the heated leather luxury of the 330i. Going from that to a go-kart with a roof was a culture shock and initially I was all
. That quickly passed though and on a tree banked straight just outside of town I gave it a good workout and it clicked - what a fantastically fun little toy. the 2.2 revs eagerly and the ratios seems to be very well chosen for the application. There's always torque and with it being so light; about 870kg I believe, it picks it's heels up and goes whenever it's asked to. Superb little machine.I quickly looked over all the history/paperwork, all 3 inches thick of it - (great to have) and the deal was done. I was very happy with the exhange.
The drive home - eeehhhh
absolutely nothing wrong with the car but 4 hours on the m25 and m4 it was definitely not built for. As you can imagine the seats are excellent for purpose but not for spending hours in just cruising, me and my mate were like - are we home yet? after about half an hour I must say though even that being said it was faultless on the return journey, very swiftly got into 3 figures and stayed there for as long as I could stand the wind noise and dropped back to a very comfortable 70mph cruise at just over 3k in 5th. I've just finished going over the paperwork and I note a few things. On the drive home when accelerating hard there was an awesome induction raw. Induction kit I thought - seems it's got a K&N cone filter and piping on it, sounds great, will look into the practicality of it. Also it seems to have a stage 2 remap carried out by Thorney Motorsport
it certainly goes well. Following on from that it has a Milltek exhaust which sounds lovely, not too loud on cruise but comes alive when the revs rise
aand - last but def not least - brand new Nitron NTRs
fitted about a month ago. Rather expensive I've been told by a Nitron sponsored VX racing driver friend, which I'm over the moon with; they're not even dirty from road grime - hopefully he can have a look at the settings and make sure they're set up correctly; which I'm sure they are.All of the mods are backed up with receipts and fitting invoices which compliment a huge folder of history from Vauxhall/Lotus specialists etc accounting for £1000's spent on the car over its life. It's great to see invoices for replacement alternator/replacement discs & brake pads/cooling system flushes/lots of major services inc' brake fluid changes included etc, new plugs recently etc etc (along with a full service carried out by PSR Automotive 1,500 miles ago) and brand new oem Bridgestone tyres fitted all round.
Over all I'm over the moon with it, I may even grow to love the colour
I have a few plans for performance for it but for now - a full wash tomorrow (who would have guessed?) and to drive/enjoy it.
and it fits in the garage with no modifications needed - apart from removing the number plate
a nice little bonus found in the boot
(all pictures are pre wash and I accept no responsibility for the mud/filth currently present)
bloody sparse in here
can just make out the Milltek etching
more tomorrow
lovely - miss my red one 
i swapped my front plate for a 3/4 sized one (big difference)
i put a viper induction on it and the N/A roar was superb! highly recommended
at least you have the space in your garage, i had to roll back the roof and stand up (haha)
enjoy - great cars and they are going up in value
JJ
i swapped my front plate for a 3/4 sized one (big difference)
i put a viper induction on it and the N/A roar was superb! highly recommended
at least you have the space in your garage, i had to roll back the roof and stand up (haha)
enjoy - great cars and they are going up in value
JJ
Looks great, good to hear someone instantly enjoying the car for its agility and pedigree
Few things:
Get yourself on Vx220.org.uk for a surprisingly busy little forum about these rare little cars with an extremely large wealth of knowledge on them
Get Rid of the Thorney sticker, not only do stickers look a bit pants on the inside of the bonnet but they don't have the greatest of reputation amongst VX owners
And if you're not emotionally attached about the bags, i'd consider selling them, they're worth a fair amount as they're extremely rare, anywhere between £50-150 i would've thought which could pay for a few full tanks of petrol
Few things:
Get yourself on Vx220.org.uk for a surprisingly busy little forum about these rare little cars with an extremely large wealth of knowledge on them
Get Rid of the Thorney sticker, not only do stickers look a bit pants on the inside of the bonnet but they don't have the greatest of reputation amongst VX owners
And if you're not emotionally attached about the bags, i'd consider selling them, they're worth a fair amount as they're extremely rare, anywhere between £50-150 i would've thought which could pay for a few full tanks of petrol
awesome guys
thanks for the kind words. pc - the k&n gives a great noise on WOT higher up the revs, would be interested to hear the viper in comparison. Yea glad of the garage, I still have to dislocate various bits of my anatomy to exit the vehicle
That's also a reason for purchase for me also; the rising value. I've lost quite a bit of money on cars and even though I'm not looking at this as an investment opportunity it'd be nice not to lose thousands upon resale!
Thanks P, yours/they all look great there, any write up on yours by any chance? always good to read up on other Vxs, especially the yellow ones
thanks for the kind words. pc - the k&n gives a great noise on WOT higher up the revs, would be interested to hear the viper in comparison. Yea glad of the garage, I still have to dislocate various bits of my anatomy to exit the vehicle
That's also a reason for purchase for me also; the rising value. I've lost quite a bit of money on cars and even though I'm not looking at this as an investment opportunity it'd be nice not to lose thousands upon resale!
Thanks P, yours/they all look great there, any write up on yours by any chance? always good to read up on other Vxs, especially the yellow ones
Mr E said:
Very nice. Looks luxurious to me.
Cheers dude. What's your daily, a broken roller skate? Thanks for your kind words Samjeev, good to know the bags are sought after, I imagined they would be. I think I'll use them for the nurburgring trip in August, i'll look properly geeky pulling those out of the boot
I've had a look around .org, seems like a great place with loads of info, I'm currently trying to source some TD Pro Race 1.2s (just like everyone else is using 
) and will probably shod them with some track day rubber. Interesting about Thorney; noted johnwilliams77 said:
Get it supercharged. A whole new level of fun.
already on it John the aforementioned racing driver friend is handy with a spanner and can arrange the SC conversion, probably won't be before NBR but it's penciled in alreadyThis is my completely embarrassing write up:
http://www.vx220.org.uk/forums/topic/135168-vx220-...
On second thoughts, don't read, it's properly embarrassing... I was VERY excited about having this car in my possession.
It's on Quantum single suspension, Team Dynamic wheels, Federel RSR rubber, AP 4-pot brakes and mintex pads, re-mapped, piper exhaust (seriously loud without much performance!).
Since buying, I had to replace the previous Sachs suspension which was incredible but needed a refurb which cost A LOT of monies and involved sending them to Germany. The engine mounts were replaced and I replaced the original OEM rad with (controversially on vx200.org.uk) another OEM rad.
The car is the most fun I've ever had, there is no other car that comes close the fun you have in a VX220 (except an S1/S2 Elise or a Caterham). But... make sure you keep the battery charged, you don't want to be changing that too often. In addition, and you'll hear this a lot; take it easy in the wet, without an LSD these things aren't so easy to handle in the wet.
Come along to some of the vx220 events and trackdays - we'll be doing Spa and Zandvoort at least once this year as well as many organised and ad hoc track days and events throughout the summer. Be great to see you there dude!
http://www.vx220.org.uk/forums/topic/135168-vx220-...
On second thoughts, don't read, it's properly embarrassing... I was VERY excited about having this car in my possession.
It's on Quantum single suspension, Team Dynamic wheels, Federel RSR rubber, AP 4-pot brakes and mintex pads, re-mapped, piper exhaust (seriously loud without much performance!).
Since buying, I had to replace the previous Sachs suspension which was incredible but needed a refurb which cost A LOT of monies and involved sending them to Germany. The engine mounts were replaced and I replaced the original OEM rad with (controversially on vx200.org.uk) another OEM rad.
The car is the most fun I've ever had, there is no other car that comes close the fun you have in a VX220 (except an S1/S2 Elise or a Caterham). But... make sure you keep the battery charged, you don't want to be changing that too often. In addition, and you'll hear this a lot; take it easy in the wet, without an LSD these things aren't so easy to handle in the wet.
Come along to some of the vx220 events and trackdays - we'll be doing Spa and Zandvoort at least once this year as well as many organised and ad hoc track days and events throughout the summer. Be great to see you there dude!
P - great write up dude, I'll take enthusiasm and descriptive writing over facts and figures any day the facts and figures you gave were also very interesting ha
Great spec and look to the car, i really do like the TD's, they really do make the car look more aggressive, I'll find some money from - somewhere to purchase a set. The battery was flat this morning at the dealership! I'll trickle charge it tonight ready for tomorrow. Ah you're in Germany! we're there from 4th to 10th August, all booked, come along dude! We've got a good group of cars and boys going and would be ace to see yours in the flesh and geek out over VX'ness.
That looks great James - everyone seems to have a hard top but me ha. and TD's! If you SC let me know if it's a good choice, I can't see it not being.
Samjeev - stunning car, love the blue and the exterior mods done, TD's! why do you all mock me with your Pro Races.. Very nice to hear the Nitrons are legit.
Off to put the battery on charge
the facts and figures you gave were also very interesting haGreat spec and look to the car, i really do like the TD's, they really do make the car look more aggressive, I'll find some money from - somewhere to purchase a set. The battery was flat this morning at the dealership! I'll trickle charge it tonight ready for tomorrow. Ah you're in Germany! we're there from 4th to 10th August, all booked, come along dude! We've got a good group of cars and boys going and would be ace to see yours in the flesh and geek out over VX'ness.
That looks great James - everyone seems to have a hard top but me ha. and TD's! If you SC let me know if it's a good choice, I can't see it not being.
Samjeev - stunning car, love the blue and the exterior mods done, TD's! why do you all mock me with your Pro Races.. Very nice to hear the Nitrons are legit.
Off to put the battery on charge
squareflops said:
Mr E said:
Very nice. Looks luxurious to me.
Cheers dude. What's your daily, a broken roller skate? The car I actually care about is the same chassis as yours but with less kit and a different badge on the nose.
Actually, I've just looked at the interior pics your posted and you also have keep fit windows, a stereo you can't hear and nothing else.
I therefore approve.
ABS?
Lovely car OP!
Banana-ness certainly stands out!
Strangely enough I was coming back from a classic car auction this afternoon with a mate of mine who deals in such things and we got overtaken by one of these in that same colour - cannot remember if it was on the A303 or M3.
But I said I'd wondered about looking for one of these and his comment was that they are holding value, if not going up!
Sounds like you have some great plans for it - enjoy!
Off to the classifieds (again)!
Banana-ness certainly stands out!
Strangely enough I was coming back from a classic car auction this afternoon with a mate of mine who deals in such things and we got overtaken by one of these in that same colour - cannot remember if it was on the A303 or M3.
But I said I'd wondered about looking for one of these and his comment was that they are holding value, if not going up!
Sounds like you have some great plans for it - enjoy!
Off to the classifieds (again)!
squareflops said:
...Ah you're in Germany! we're there from 4th to 10th August, all booked, come along dude! We've got a good group of cars and boys going and would be ace to see yours in the flesh and geek out over VX'ness...
Count me in RoadRunner220 said:
james_gt3rs said:
Temped to supercharge...
Do it, do it, do it.I supercharged mine and it takes you to a whole new level of awesomeness.
Edited by Potatoes on Saturday 27th February 21:16
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