Hi everyone. My last car was a mk4 ERST that I had fully restored. I sold it and due to my job didnt realy have time for another project. Luckily things have changed and im now looking at a 16i that I have come across locally.

The car im looking at needs a total bare shell resto which doesnt bother me. Its complete with loads of spares. Comes with all the panels to complete as well. The car has good history as well.

The way I look at it is that im better off to spend a total of £4-5K on buying and building one that I know is right rather than buying one for the same money that will need a certain amount of work.

Looking at it the shell needs:

Front panel and cross member
2x Front wings
Inner and outer sills both sides
rear quatre lower repair panels both sides
rear panel.
Bonnet
Boot
2x Doors

Obviously there will be more repair work once you get into it.


How bad would it need to be before you would scrap it?

Cheers for any help.

 

Depends how keen you are on keeping it. I know people who restore Cortinas and have seen them replace just about every single panel on a car - from inner wings to complete floors, basically building a new car.

 

Thats not bad. On my sierra, I have so far replaced:
2x inner sills;
2x outer sills;
1 rear quarter
Half the floor pan, and done several patches to the transmission tunnel

I need to still
Replace the boot floor
Replace both rear chassis legs
Replace the rear panel
I am also re doing the sills
I am making a brand new floor pan
I am going to drill out the bulkhead rail to get to weld some holes
Im removing the lower bulkhead to re weld some patches
I'm removing the inner wings to sand blast in side the chassis legs
Removing the crossmember to put a new one in
Etc etc. Depends what attachment you have to the car imo. Mine's sentimental.

 

I'd say it all depends on how deep your pockets are, how much time you want to spend on it, how much patience you have, also not forgetting a good condition car with loads of new panels will never be worth as much as one in the same condition that has never needed restoration and is all original.

With a quite rare car and one that is likely to go up in value, I would be having one with a good shell to start with.

 

Give it a thorough check over when you veiw it, passenger side is usually worse underneath due to road water lying along the edge of the road. Entirely up to you wether you save it, rs1600's are getting harder to come by now so i think it would be worth doing.

 

It's hard to say really, I'd never scrap a rs16i whatever the condition. Just think of the outcome