A birthday treat to myself

Well I am the big 50 today, half a century no less. How have I celebrated my birthday? By getting up nice and early and continuing with decorating the house. Oh yeah all rock and roll me. No birthday wishes from Ern or Kyle this morning, even wor Baxter didn't pay particular attention. My aunty Claire and Uncle Dave called in yesterday like, bringing along a delicious home made chocolate cake, em-blazed with "Happy Birthday". To be honest I prefer to fly under the radar when birthdays come up and kind of pretend I am not getting any older. I am sure I had my date of birth hidden on Facebook, however I have had a number of birthday well wishes from old school friends and other friends and family. Lovely people one and all and thanks to everyone.

Awesome Birthday Treat

 It's funny how we go through life and things sort of materialize. An example. I was bored one evening a good few weeks back. So decided to have a look on Autotrader. I was looking to see if there were any Smart cars like mine for sale. I have a Fortwo Night Orange. It's a limited version of the model, only 235 were made in this style/colour combo. Anyhoo as I perused Autotrader I got my eye on a VW Beetle GSR. The things that attracted me to this particular car, were things like it's a pretty rare model, only 3500 were produced world wide and of those 3500 only 100 were sold in the UK. Plus certain models came with a semi-auto DSG gearbox. There were a few Bright yellow GSR's for sale, however only one had a DSG box and on closer inspection looking at the picture it appeared as if it had a worn and possibly torn seat cover. As I began researching more information about the model I discovered that there were only 30 grey and black colour combo cars sold in the UK. I thought "there is no way I am ever going to find one of those". I mean out of those 30 how many would have the DSG box I required. A couple of days later whilst again reading up on the GSR model and what specs the car came with I saw an advert for a VW Beetle GSR. It was on the Piston Heads website. When I checked out the ad, there she was. As I began reading through the ad I was mentally ticking off all the things that the owner had done and thinking "yep I would do that". Stuff like a stage one Revo remap (however I am now looking at a stage 2. If I were to buy a Revo front pipe with race Cat I would get a free stage 2 remap) Then there was the 20 inch alloys, Revo air Intake, Miltek Cat back exhaust and 2017 Led tail lights. Add to the fact the car had a complete VW service history and looked the dogs dangly bits in the pics, well it didn't take me long to decide to get in touch with the seller. The car was priced a little higher than it's yellow counterparts, however the price also reflected in the extras installed both as performance mods and as standard factory extras. A little haggle via text and a price was agreed. 

I was gutted I had to wait a week longer than I would have liked as it was Bank Holiday weekend. Never mind Ern and I drove all the way down to Oxfordshire last Friday and I met William and his beautiful VW Beetle GSR, number 240 of the limited run. William was spot on and showed me all around the car. It was exactly as described and in fantastic condition. Deal done, a little bit time sorting finances with both Williams and my bank and I drove home after getting the car insured on-line.

240 of 3500

The drive home although long was great. That new car feel and getting to know her. Lots of different switches and buttons. When I first set off from Williams I thought "dear me this car feels huge, it's wide as feck". I mean come on I am used to something just a tad larger than a shopping trolley. A short ride through the town centre and I had to pull in for fuel, for on the trip back. This is where I hit my first "learning about the car"...How the hell do you open the fuel flap"..."quick look around inside, nope no release". Good job Ern was there, he just came and gently pushed on the outside of the flap and it sprang open. Sorted and filled up. William had already put my postcode into the sat nav and the sat nav lady was directing me in what I hoped was the right direction. Mind you she seemed to take us down every back road and kept saying "re-routing". Eventually we discovered the M4. Long story short even with the sat nav I got lost 3 times. Nowt unusual for me of course, but in my defence I do think the sat nav required updating (that job has been sorted I have just updated to version 15, getting the maps from some geezer on-line for £24.99)

 

VW Beetle GSR number 240

Miltek Cat Back

Certain ways the Bug looks Porche'sk

Once on the motorway the car gave me a bit of a fright. I mean I knew it would be fairly pokey, but dear me, it is a proper wolf in sheep's clothing. I am going to have to try and use my sensible head upon each trip. Though the mischievous evil side of me would like to pull up at the lights and burn off some boy racers Muhahahaha, leaving them thinking "what the F$@K just happened, that's a Beetle".

Lovely car to drive, if a little scary LoL

So this is my birthday treat, my mid life crisis if you like, yeah I could have gone for a red convertible, but I like the retro styling of my bug and I am sure she will become a collectors item, maybe we will both see another 50 years