Peugeot 205 Mi16 | PH Private Area

Enough with the perfectly preserved GTIs already - here's a 205 to really get out and drive

By Matt Bird / Wednesday, 3 September 2025 / Loading comments

There’s no joy quite like modifying a car. Picking out exactly the upgrades you want, tailoring the car exactly to your taste, making it drive just how you like a car to drive. A properly personal project is rewarding like little else.

The potential difficulty comes when it’s time to sell up, because other folk might not like your changes; and the pool of prospective buyers does tend to be bigger for standard cars. But here we might have the modified holy grail. Because here’s an extensively altered 205 GTI - complete with a 200hp Mi16 and a six-speed, for starters - that could be more desirable to more people than standard. Alright, so it won’t win any prizes on the lawn for originality, but if we assume that most people who now want a 205 GTI are after raw classic car excitement, an old school pocket rocket thrill, then there can’t be any better. Plus it still looks absolutely fabulous.

Great though standard 205s undoubtedly are, there’s no escaping the fact that even the youngest GTIs are now more than 30 years old. Even the mint examples will likely have tired brakes and suspension, and while they’ll feel exciting to drive they certainly won’t seem as speedy as they did in the 90s. Course you could go the full Tolman on modernising one, but that’s a hugely pricey process. Whereas this one is for sale at thousands less than some low mileage, standard examples.

To the important stuff. The engine is the 1.9-litre Mi16, rebuilt with Jenvey throttle bodies, high lift cams, a custom exhaust manifold, plus a ported and polished head. It’s now making more than 200hp, features a baffled sump to keep the oil coming on track, and promises some very serious performance in a car so light. The sound has to be glorious, too. Marshalling the power is a refurbished GTI-6 gearbox, with Quaife limited-slip diff. All the good stuff, basically.

And that’s really just the start, because no part of the GTI package has been ignored in the pursuit of the perfect 205 track car. As well as the six-speed, there are brakes from a GTI-6 with braided hoses and EBC pads (plus bias adjustment), Gaz Gold coilovers, Powerflex bushes, a host of 309 GTI parts and Toyo Proxes tyres. You just know it’s going to be an absolute blast on any bit of tarmac, harnessed into the Sparco seats doing your best tarmac rally driver impression.

Not that this is some kind of rough and ready road racer, though. ‘The idea was to create a trackday-spec car that still looked like a standard 205 GTi’, says the seller, so it’s been bare shell resprayed, Waxoyled, the trims smoothed and the wheels refurbished. The air horn even still works. While it wouldn’t take long for the keen to notice some changes, from the bonnet bulge to the big brakes, this remains a really smart little GTI. As well as one that promises enormous entertainment.

It’s going to be sold with a year’s MOT, moreover, so B-roads will never be quite the same again. While a GTI this focused might require some getting used to for anyone familiar with new cars, it’s hardly like a standard one would be simple by today’s standards. With all the work completed and the sale only going ahead through a lack of use, it looks quite the opportunity for someone. And the desirability of the modifications won’t matter a jot if it’s never sold on again…

See the original advert here