My journey into the world of the VR6 began in a rather mundane manner. I needed a car for getting to work and all my money had gone on a trackcar project (a very troublesome Mk1 Golf GTi with a 2.0 16v engine conversion).

So there I was having some work done on the trackcar when I saw a maroon Vento VR6, I didn't know it was a VR6 at the time as it had been debadged for that 'stealthy' look. It just looked like a good, clean car and being German should generally be reliable. There were certainly no heart strings tugged initially, it just seemed to make sense; then, when my mate told me it was the VR6, it seemed to make 'perfect' sense.

Now as anyone who knows me will testify, impulse buys have always been my forte. It had a nasty dent in the wing where some kind soul had kicked it so we agreed a price of £1,400 and I arranged to pick it up in a couple of days. The 60 mile drive home was a mixture of delight and horror. Delight at the way the engine would pull round to the limiter with the roar it made and horror at the alarming way the fuel gauge was dropping! I put it down to me being rather heavy footed and I decided to see what it was like on the run to work. Well after a week I was under the car looking for the fuel leak! Was the petrol actually getting to the cylinders or had I inadvertently hit a jettison switch? It was at that point that it actually hit me, this was it, best it could do, the lot. Over the first couple of weeks I'd seen a best of 27 and a worst of 16mpg! This was going to be an expensive commute…

Apart from the hideous fuel consumption the car was running fine, but the brakes started to lose feel and a check revealed new discs and pads were needed all round. Europarts sold ATE Powerdiscs and pads which were cheaper than standard so a set was ordered. Through the trackcar project I had learnt my way around a car, so rather than pay someone to do the work, the brake change was tackled by me and my dad. Well, I passed the tools and wielded the sledge hammer! Oh yes, there was need for a sledge hammer. It turned out the car had been parked up for 14 months prior to my mate buying it then selling it to me. The discs had rusted and become stuck to the hubs and no amount of gentle tapping was going to free them. Disc and pads changed, it soon settled back into the normal routine of regular trips to the petrol pumps.

On a lunch break one day last March I was casually browsing Autotrader when I came across another Vento VR6 for sale. It was younger than mine with 40k less on the clock and it was only up for £2,200. It was white too and I've always been a sucker for white cars! Being in the VR6 Owners Club I knew this was silly cheap money. What was the catch? Well the car was in Southampton and, well, I wasn't. I asked a mate who owns a salvage company about bringing it up on one of his trucks and he said he could sort something. Being in the trade and being Irish I let him call the guy who was selling and arrange things. Later that day he called to say it'd all been sorted and he'd got him down to £1,500! Problems arose with the locations of his trucks at the time they were needed so a flight to Southampton was booked, cash was handed over and I then faced the 6 hour drive home in a car I'd just bought blind!

I needn't have worried; the car was as good as when it left the factory and felt so much 'tighter' than the maroon one. I sold the first one to my brother for the same price I paid for it, switched the insurance and was pleased to hear that there was no extra charge over the original £200 fully comp. Then it happened… I got a new job which meant an 80 mile round trip daily, in the Thirst Monster! What to do? I loved the car and was very reluctant to sell it, so there was only one other sensible solution, an LPG conversion. This was carried out, and the car came back with a 60 litre LPG tank in the (massive) boot which still left loads of space and I set about my new cheap commute.

Filling up with gas for the first time was almost embarrassing, particularly as I found myself laughing as the litre counter rose swiftly but the price didn't. First fill up of 56 litres was £18, the same in petrol was £50! The conversion also gave the potential for a massive range with twin 60 litre tanks. I could now drive everywhere and not have one eye on the fuel gauge.

For financial reasons the trackcar had to go but I couldn't give up my trackdays so the Vento was pressed into action. I'd swapped the suspension from the other car as it gave a 40mm drop and took away the comedy factory ride height. The first outing was superb, I'd expected it to be wallowy and suffer from understeer but it was only too happy to let the back end go light and have some nice drifts. I don't think the guy in the Elise was too happy to be overtaken by an ageing VW but that's his problem! The day killed off the brakes and I now have some EBC discs and Pagid pads waiting to go on. It also feels like it will benefit from a full service, the last one, like all the others was at a VW main dealer but the price they want is ridiculous. It'll be going to one of the many VW specialists in the area.

Oh, and what was the trackcar replaced with? Well I swapped it for, yep you've guessed it, another Vento VR6!

Who says I have no imagination!