Budget Vauxhall VX220
Discussion
Hi all,
So I’m very much a long time lurker on Pistonheads, I often find myself perusing through the readers section, especially with lockdowns and work from home it became an all too easy distraction from, well, working...
However after lurking for so long I decided it was finally time to create my own readers thread, with a car that I picked up late summer last year.
I’m a bit of a sucker for small soft top sports car having owned a mk3 MR2, a 3.0l Z4 and still own a mk1 mx5 track hack. The MR2 especially made me the subject of much piss taking at work as one of mates once so eloquently put ‘you just love to feel the wind in your v**gina don’t you’. However girly looks aside the MR2 was undoubtedly my favourite of the budget sports cars I kicked about in. I wouldn’t say I regret selling it but I always knew I wanted to foray back into a lightweight mid engined sports car at some point.
To my mind the logical step was an Elise of some sort, more power, less weight and just an altogether better package. So in 2019 I almost bought a colleague's S2 111s but it all fell through at the last minute, and at the time not taking on the financial burden actually felt like a bit of a relief so I decided to not look for another.
Jumping ahead to last year my daily driver was an old Landrover Discovery 2 and whilst I’m inexplicably drawn to knackered old Landrovers it just wasn’t scratching the itch that I get from a sports car. So I hit the classifieds again browsing for Elise’s and wow I certainly got a bit of a shock! When I was looking in 2019 it seemed you could get a standard s2 1.8 for around £12k and a 111s for £15k however now it seemed even a standard 1.8 was pushing £20k and it was just too far out of reach and I had to basically give up on the idea again.
Then one evening when browsing as one does I had the idea of a Vauxhall VX220, I knew that they were basically the same underneath as an S2 but they were much rarer and surely they commanded similar if not more money than an S2? Well alas no, the turbo model did sure, but the 2.2 N/A looked to be a much more affordable proposition! Inevitably an evening was lost in the depths of the internet reading every bit of information I could find on the VX220 and convincing myself that this was the answer.
Now I am notoriously terrible at buying cars, I always have all the right intentions. I do my research, end up viewing a car that has all the warning signs highlighted in said research and then buy it anyway…
This time was going to be different, this was the most cash I’d ever spent on a car, it needed to be right, low mileage good condition and hopefully keep, if not go up in value over the years, and oh it had to not be silver because I always end up with silver cars. So anyway a car pops up to me very locally, it’s silver but it is low mileage and seems fairly priced, I tell myself I’ll just go have a look as it’s so local, but I’m not going to buy it even it’s it’s the straightest car I’ve seen because I’m not going to get another silver car. I arrive and the chap is very friendly, he immediately points out that the paint is knackered on the rear clamshell, it’s flaking and it’s clearly had a very poor respray at some point. A quick look underneath and I can see a lot of surface rust on the suspension components other than that it seems pretty straight.He offers to take me for a drive and having never been out in one I accept. It does seem to drive ok to be fair.
Now I’ve seen an acronym on here a lot of many blokes referring to their significant others as SWMBO’s and I feel that really a lot of the time they are actually a voice of reason for an idiotic decision based off of some late night man maths… my wife isn’t like this in fact she’s quite the opposite.
Once back from the test drive the wife and I have a quick chat out of earshot and she’s saying things like ‘you only live once’ ‘what’s the worst that can happen’ and the next thing I know I’m clumsily making an offer to the owner that can best be described as ‘cheeky’ worst as ‘taking the total piss’ and to my surprise he says yes.
So here it is a Silver vx220 with the 2.2 N/A engine with a ruined rear clam and very rusty suspension, a long way from the car I intended to get but it was cheap at least?
[url]
I realised I have written quite an essay so will stop here for now however I have plans (some already started) to do lot of work getting the car back to a good state so if anyones interested I will keep a bit of a progress log on here.
So I’m very much a long time lurker on Pistonheads, I often find myself perusing through the readers section, especially with lockdowns and work from home it became an all too easy distraction from, well, working...
However after lurking for so long I decided it was finally time to create my own readers thread, with a car that I picked up late summer last year.
I’m a bit of a sucker for small soft top sports car having owned a mk3 MR2, a 3.0l Z4 and still own a mk1 mx5 track hack. The MR2 especially made me the subject of much piss taking at work as one of mates once so eloquently put ‘you just love to feel the wind in your v**gina don’t you’. However girly looks aside the MR2 was undoubtedly my favourite of the budget sports cars I kicked about in. I wouldn’t say I regret selling it but I always knew I wanted to foray back into a lightweight mid engined sports car at some point.
To my mind the logical step was an Elise of some sort, more power, less weight and just an altogether better package. So in 2019 I almost bought a colleague's S2 111s but it all fell through at the last minute, and at the time not taking on the financial burden actually felt like a bit of a relief so I decided to not look for another.
Jumping ahead to last year my daily driver was an old Landrover Discovery 2 and whilst I’m inexplicably drawn to knackered old Landrovers it just wasn’t scratching the itch that I get from a sports car. So I hit the classifieds again browsing for Elise’s and wow I certainly got a bit of a shock! When I was looking in 2019 it seemed you could get a standard s2 1.8 for around £12k and a 111s for £15k however now it seemed even a standard 1.8 was pushing £20k and it was just too far out of reach and I had to basically give up on the idea again.
Then one evening when browsing as one does I had the idea of a Vauxhall VX220, I knew that they were basically the same underneath as an S2 but they were much rarer and surely they commanded similar if not more money than an S2? Well alas no, the turbo model did sure, but the 2.2 N/A looked to be a much more affordable proposition! Inevitably an evening was lost in the depths of the internet reading every bit of information I could find on the VX220 and convincing myself that this was the answer.
Now I am notoriously terrible at buying cars, I always have all the right intentions. I do my research, end up viewing a car that has all the warning signs highlighted in said research and then buy it anyway…
This time was going to be different, this was the most cash I’d ever spent on a car, it needed to be right, low mileage good condition and hopefully keep, if not go up in value over the years, and oh it had to not be silver because I always end up with silver cars. So anyway a car pops up to me very locally, it’s silver but it is low mileage and seems fairly priced, I tell myself I’ll just go have a look as it’s so local, but I’m not going to buy it even it’s it’s the straightest car I’ve seen because I’m not going to get another silver car. I arrive and the chap is very friendly, he immediately points out that the paint is knackered on the rear clamshell, it’s flaking and it’s clearly had a very poor respray at some point. A quick look underneath and I can see a lot of surface rust on the suspension components other than that it seems pretty straight.He offers to take me for a drive and having never been out in one I accept. It does seem to drive ok to be fair.
Now I’ve seen an acronym on here a lot of many blokes referring to their significant others as SWMBO’s and I feel that really a lot of the time they are actually a voice of reason for an idiotic decision based off of some late night man maths… my wife isn’t like this in fact she’s quite the opposite.
Once back from the test drive the wife and I have a quick chat out of earshot and she’s saying things like ‘you only live once’ ‘what’s the worst that can happen’ and the next thing I know I’m clumsily making an offer to the owner that can best be described as ‘cheeky’ worst as ‘taking the total piss’ and to my surprise he says yes.
So here it is a Silver vx220 with the 2.2 N/A engine with a ruined rear clam and very rusty suspension, a long way from the car I intended to get but it was cheap at least?
[url]I realised I have written quite an essay so will stop here for now however I have plans (some already started) to do lot of work getting the car back to a good state so if anyones interested I will keep a bit of a progress log on here.
Edited by andrewc2102 on Wednesday 27th April 23:08
Edited by andrewc2102 on Thursday 28th April 07:57
Edited by andrewc2102 on Thursday 28th April 09:10
Watching with interest Lovely car. I catch myself fancying a vx220 from time to time, but I have no garage to keep a car like that at the moment. If that has the Z22SE 2.2 engine in it check the cam chain tensioner is the updated type, if you’re unsure join https://z22se.co.uk/ and look in the section on cam chains. I had to do the one on mine at only 42k. If you’ve taken this on as a bit of a project then check the engine over, and there is a lot of stuff you can do to these to bump up the power if you want. Other than the cam chain it’s a decent engine.
I’m looking forward to seeing this progress. Good luck with it!
I’m looking forward to seeing this progress. Good luck with it!
I went to view a yellow and even an orange Elise when I went looking which were my first choices as I wanted a bright coloured one, I ended up with a black one after saying I'd never own a black car again.
If you are at all handy, doing all the suspension work yourself is imo very easy if you do the research and know what to look for. They are like a big meccano kit underneath.
If you are at all handy, doing all the suspension work yourself is imo very easy if you do the research and know what to look for. They are like a big meccano kit underneath.
Love these. I ran a blue one for a year and miss it greatly.
I had the factory bilsteins refurbished and it transformed the car, well worth giving that suspension a refurbish!
As for that rear clam, we'll that's a bit of a mess! Not actually a huge amount to respray but removing the clam can be very time consuming I understand.
There was talk of somebody making after market clams a little while back but I don't know if that ever happened. Vx220 org was a wealth of information if its still about....
Either way enjoy driving it. Everyone should own an elise variant at some point in their lives...
I had the factory bilsteins refurbished and it transformed the car, well worth giving that suspension a refurbish!
As for that rear clam, we'll that's a bit of a mess! Not actually a huge amount to respray but removing the clam can be very time consuming I understand.
There was talk of somebody making after market clams a little while back but I don't know if that ever happened. Vx220 org was a wealth of information if its still about....
Either way enjoy driving it. Everyone should own an elise variant at some point in their lives...
Edited by drgoatboy on Friday 29th April 07:21
Clams available here
http://www.lotushardtops.com/vx220-opel-speedster
Great project this.
Interesting your comments about the Lotus/VX prices - I bought my Elise last year and found there really wasnt much difference in prices at all - if the VX was noticeably cheaper (or more rather, a nicer car for the same money) then I would have bought one, however as the price difference was so little I did find myself drawn to the Lotus.
However, there does appear to be more 'project' type VX220s around - perhaps as in the past they were a bit cheaper they have been neglected a bit more.
Its details anway - when talking S1/VX220/EarlyS2, theres much more thats the same or similar than there are differences.
http://www.lotushardtops.com/vx220-opel-speedster
Great project this.
Interesting your comments about the Lotus/VX prices - I bought my Elise last year and found there really wasnt much difference in prices at all - if the VX was noticeably cheaper (or more rather, a nicer car for the same money) then I would have bought one, however as the price difference was so little I did find myself drawn to the Lotus.
However, there does appear to be more 'project' type VX220s around - perhaps as in the past they were a bit cheaper they have been neglected a bit more.
Its details anway - when talking S1/VX220/EarlyS2, theres much more thats the same or similar than there are differences.
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