Trevs Derby

I picked up the Derby from a chap about 20 miles from home in February 2009, it was for sale for a few weeks on www.vagdrivers.net with no real interest. I spotted it and the price seemed right enough. The owner was due to move overseas and with no interest in the car it was due to be weighed in for scrap but luckily I got it justin time! I trailered it home and parked it for a couple of weeks while I did a bit of research about where the likely rust spots were and what panels were available to repair it. I found the Mk1 Polo club in the UK (www.mk1polo.com) and registered on their forum. The regulars were very helpful with advice and information on where to source panels etc.

The car itself is originally a 1.1 "Formel E" car in Lemon Yellow (LA1D). The Formel E spec includes a high-compression engine, designed to run on 98 RON petrol, a smaller carburettor, a MPG gauge in the dash and an extra-high ratio gearbox, with three normal gears and an overdrive fourth gear. All of these additions are in the name of maximising fuel economy. Trim-wise, the exterior is the same as the LS spec model with small plastic caps in the wheel centres, chrome/black plastic side trim, one plastic door mirror. Inside, the seats have no headrests and there is only one lap belt in the centre of the rear seat.

After researching a bit more and assessing the state of the bodywork on the car, I discovered that repair panels simply were not available in Ireland and would have to be bought from the UK. I would need two inner front wing repairs, two repairs to the rear ends of the sills, two rear arches, two floor repairs at the front jacking points and two rear chassis leg repairs. The front valance was also dodgy and there was a hole in the bottom of the window frame on the right side window. Along with the rotten battery tray and the strengthening rib in the bonnet, the rot was typical of a mk1 Polo/Derby. It was rotten in all the usual places. Since I couldn't source panels locally, when I heard of a '76 Polo for sale for parts I jumped at the chance to buy it.

When I pulled the Polo from its resting place (a shed with a collapsed roof) I could see that it was far worse than the Derby, in terms of rot. It did however, have some nice early trim still present and I was able to salvage a few nice pieces from it. It's a shame it was so rotten, it was an extremely early RHD Polo, being first registered in the UK in May '76, the model was only released in March of that year. I sold some bits from it which recovered most of the cost of buying it and stripped it of EVERYTHING including cutting some sections from the body and then had the shell taken away to be crushed.

With some repair sections in hand from the Polo and more on order by my brother-in-law in Wales I started pulling the Derby apart and doing what I could while I waited for the repairs to arrive. I made a repair section for the RHS inner front wing and was able to use a section of the Polo window frame to repair the rotten frame on the Derby.

Since repair sections aren't available to repair the rear chassis legs I had to cut out the rot and make up sections myself to suit. I used metal from a 6N Polo door skin to fold up my own repair sections! I decided to do away with the welded-on bracket on the chassis legs, I found out later it was used to locate the shell on factory jigs during assembly all those years ago so now they are redundant. The RHS is pictured below, the same repair was carried out on the LHS too.

To access the underside to make these repairs I used my chain block hanging from a steel beam in the ceiling of the garage. When up on it's side, the car was resting on some tyres on the ground, it was quite stable and wasn't in danger of falling over. However I left the chain and strap attached as a fail-safe ;-) . It made working on the underside of the car mach easier than lying on my back welding upwards. When one side was done I turned the car around and flipped up the other side. I did this to avail of the natural light which only comes from one side of my garage. With it flipped up like this I was able to repair both the chassis legs, both sills and both of the front jacking points easily.

I was still working without any repair panels, justwhatever I had salvaged from the Polo and whatever bits I could make up myself. I removed the front wings and repaired the RHS inner wing with a section I hammered into shape myself (no pics :-( ) and made repair sections to fix the rot in the front jacking points that had gone through to the floorpan too. The RHS jacking point is pictured, the LHS was exactly the same.

The battery tray was rotten too, as is usual for almost all Polos/Derbys, right up to the end of the mk3 Polo in '94, this area is designed to flow water from the bonnet vents and combined with old unsealed batteries leaking acid, you can see how easily this area rots.

Once I received the repair panels from Wales (Hadrians brand, available in the UK but not Ireland) I could start to attack the more visible rot. I got a LHS inner wing repair, two rear arch repair sections, a full RHS sill outer skin and a floor section that I ended up not using. I was able to use the RHS sill skin to make repairs for both sides of the car, I didn't replace the full length of the sills, just the rotten bits at the rear ends.The sills and back arches were obviously rotten, it could be seen from outside. What couldn't be seen though, was the inner skins of both the sills and the arches. It became evident upon cutting away the outer skins there was further work to do inside. I made up repair sections for the inner skin of the sills and I was able to use sections cut from the Polo to repair the inner skins of the arches. One point of note though, the rear arch sections available from Hadrians are made for the Polo and due to the longer rear on the Derby, have to be reshaped at the trailing edge to suit the longer sides of the Derby. RHS shown below, same thing on the LHS.

The front wings had unfortunately seen better days and needed a lot of attention. New ones are not available, either genuine from VW or even pattern parts from the likes of Hadrians. Occasionally old ones pop up online but when they do, theycommand serious money. Since this was always a budget build I set about repairing the wings on the Derby. I saved the wings from the Polo, even though they were rotten too but I was able to cut a few small sections from them to make the Derby's wings good again. Other sections had to be made up from scratch.

The front valance repair panel is no longer available and the valance on the Polo was actually worse (!) so I had to make do with making up sections to replace rot.The last few miscellaneous spots that need repairs were fixed too, the left lower corner of the windscreen frame and the strengthening rib of the bonnet.

Mechanical:

As mentioned above, the engine was originally a 1.1 carburetted lump, with four-speed gearbox. While I was repairing the body, I made up my mind to upgrade the mechanical aspects of the car too. Initially I picked up a 1.4 AEX engine and 5-speed box from a '96 Seat Cordoba (same as 6K Polo Saloon). The engine fitted straight in with some swapping of engine mounts but the drive shafts were too long to bolt up to the CVs. There was also a huuuuuuge amount of wiring required to run the multi-point injected engine so when I saw this '94 mk3 Polo for sale on a classifieds website, I bought it the next day. It was a 1.3 single point injected model with 5-speed gearbox. Since the underside of the mk3 Polo is almost identical to the mk1 Polo/Derby I was able to swap over pretty much everything mechanical from the mk3 into the mk1. Starting at the front, from the mk3 I used the anti-roll bar, the engine and box, the front struts, brakes, track control arms, full exhaust system, fuel lines, fuel tank, rear axle complete. Basically, my mk1 is now a mk3, mechanically speaking. I had heard the gear shift linkage needed to be modified by cutting and welding to make the mk3 box work in the mk1 shell but upon investigation, I discovered that a quick loosening of one nut and bolt allowed the full mk3 gear lever and shift rod to be used in the mk1. No cutting or welding, all factory parts. Gift!
Since I was using the "fuel injection" fuel tank from the mk3 (it has an internal lift pump) I could no longer use the mk1 enhaust or handbrake systems. The mk3 exhaust was a simple bolt-up swap but the handbrake mechanism was a bit more involved to adapt. I had to cut the handbrake bracket from the tunnel of the mk3 Polo and weld it into the mk1, ensuring I cut away some of the tunnel to allow the mk3 lever to work.While I was under the car, I replaced the brake flexi hoses but the mk1 metal brake fluid lines were so badly corroded they broke away so I had to buy a pipe making kit and make up some new ones. It's not a nice job :(
Now that I had mk3 struts fitted, they already had more modern "VWI" calipers fitted but I upgraded them to VWII calipers from a mk3 Golf. A simple bolt-on conversion. I fitted new brake disks and rear shoes while I was sorting the brakes.
To get the fuel injected engine to work in the car, I replaced the entire mk1 wiring loom with the mk3 one. It was the right shape but needed some adapting around the front and rear lamps and at the column switches to get it all working. I even used the mk3 dash binnacle in the mk1 dashboard.

Acessories:

With the body work sorted, the mechanical and electronic conversion finished and the lowering springs fitted, it was time to put my own personal twist into the car.
It started with the wheels: 14" Renault 21 "baby turbines" fitted with 175/50R14 tyres, the lowest profile 14" tyres I could find. They knock another inch out of the ride height but obviously do nothing for top speed or fuel economy :-( . I had a pair od "peep" mirrors left over from a previous beetle project and I binned the single plastic door mirror in favour of the "hot-rod" style peep mirrors. They're rubbish for rear viewing but look cool! The roof rack is a brand new EMPI woodslat rack for a beetle but out of the box it was too wide for the Derby's roof gutters and too tall for the Derby's flat roof. I shortened the legs of the rack, narrowing them in the process due to the angle they're at anyway. It now fits perfectly and after modifing the clamps a little, it is secure on the roof too. I picked up some suitably vintage suitcases for a bit of roof rack clutter ;-). The original big plastic bumpers were ditched in favour of fibreglass replica "early" bumpers and end caps. The "late" bumper brackets had to be shortened to allow fitment of the early bumpers closer to the body and I made up some aluminium bullet bolts on a CNC lathe to fit them up. One of the things I saved from the Polo was the side window trims, they are proper chromed metal and not "plasti-chrome" like the late model trims. They now match the door window trims and look far better for it. The early Polo also donated its front grille and round headlamps, much neater than the bulgy grille and square lamps of the Derby. The last thing to be added to the outside was a Notek "blue spot" spot lamp and the interior got a Smithwicks beer tap handle as a gear knob! The last addition is the mk1 Golf CL chin spoiler, it fits up nicely to the curve of the front valance and finishes off the front perfectly!

So that's it, from a rust-bucket that was fit for the scrap yard to a cool rat look cruiser in only a few months. It was a lot of work but I'm really enjoying driving it and people's reactions when they see it. Most people don't know what it is, this is quite a rare car in Ireland!


the rot had gone through to the boot floor	all cut back to good steel	repair to the boot floor	and then the chassis leg itself


visible rot in the rear arches	outer skin cut away, inner rotten too	inner skin repaired	outer sill end and rear arch repaired


front edges of both wings were repaired	the arch lips of both wings needed work	the aerial hole was rotten too	the very bottom front corners wer also rotten


front valance repaired	same on the LHS	lower corner of windscreen	rib in underside of bonnet


'94 mk3 Polo donor	1.3 SPI engine, 5 speed box	engine, box and front suspension pulled from donor	flipped over to get the rest of the stuff

Derby stripped ready to receive the upgrades	mk3 engine ready to go in	mk3 lhandbrake bracket welded into mk1 tunnel	mk3 tank, rear axle, fuel pump/filter in mk1 shell


rot in the RHS side window frame	repaired with a section from the Polo


RHS front jacking point	floor pan repaired	outer section repaired


rotten battery tray	repaired, I left out the bracket, it was a dirt trap


front shorter springs	rear lowering springs are actually longer!	rear bumpstops need to be cut down to...	...this long!!


14" Renault 21 wheels	peep mirrors	wood slat roof rack	Notek spot lamp, chin spoiler and fibreglass replica bumpers

plasti-chrome window trim	real metal chrome window trim	Polo donated its grille and lamps	the "beer lever" ;-)