ベン・ギルド (Ben Guild)


The $1400 Jetta project!

Ads: Ben may receive compensation from one or more of the providers mentioned.

So, I sold my car… the heavily-modified, factory-looking sleeper, twin-turbo'ed Volkswagen R32, and got this instead for a “who cares” city car. ⚓️ …👋🏻

The R32 was a project car for years, but like Dubspace, as my interests moved away from cars and car-related projects, it seemed a lot easier to just not have a car at all at first while I was a student. — I used Zipcar for a while, but then I realized I was sort of wasting money on that versus just grabbing a cheap VW off of Craigslist.

While owning a car requires some maintenance, this one was so cheap and just had nearly all of its major scheduled maintenance done before being driven out from California, so if anything… this car is more a project geared towards minimialism for me than high-performance and fun like before. (The R32, by comparison, ended up having over 600HP in the end, and was not only heavily customized… but also ridiculous.) 😂

The R32 sold for $34,100 USD on eBay (which is nearly $10,000 USD more than what I bought it for back in 2006 with low-mileage), but I'd put a lot of work and parts into it throughout the adventure, so I sort of just “called it a day” and said goodbye and moved onto this project instead. 👍🏻

The $1400 USD Jetta: “And so it begins.”
The $1400 USD Jetta: “And so it begins.”

The Jetta is basically going to pay for itself after a few months, so the purchase was a no-brainer especially since the car was in such good condition. Having been driven out from California, as mentioned, it was never subjected to any winter road-salt, so the body's entirely rust-free and almost like new. — It did have some solar damage to the roof, but I might just have that repainted for a few hundred bucks at a body shop, and the car should look basically perfect. 😎

All it really needed was a stereo with an iPhone-compatible USB port, so I installed that myself as a quick upgrade this weekend:

Wiring the new deck. Just finished installing the headunit! awesome for iPhones.

… Here's the finished installation, with iPhone cable attached. 👍🏻 — Awesome! So modern, yet in an older but chill and nicely-kept car… perfect for the city and occasional trips out of town or to go snowboarding. 🏂