Have now owned the car a little over a month so I thought it was about time to get a thread up about it to help document it's progress as much as anything. I wasn't really specifically in the market for a Trophy, I was initially looking at getting a regular 182, but I looked at a few and they weren't quite the perfect car so I started to ponder the possibility of stretching the budget to get the holy grail of the breed and having watching Harry Metcalfe's video on them countless times here I am! Now I went in at the lower end of the market value wise but it seems an honest car, with good service history but showing it's mileage in a few areas, mainly cosmetically, but the interior and mechanicals seems very good so far.
This is the only pic I have from when I bought it after getting it home parked next to my mx5 that it was replacing
Soon after buying the car I had started to draw up a list of the little bits and bobs that needed doing, first up was a trip to Ren7oaks to sort some bits which I was unable to including the aux belt. Next up was to sort the common problem of the yellowing headlights from UV damage. I ended up using the 3M kit as that seemed to give decent results with just using a drill and I'm happy with how they came out, the odd deeper scratch are still present but a whole lot better than they were.
Quite hard to capture the worst of it but hopefully gives an idea
Half way through on the O/S, this was the first one I did and wasn't too sure whether to take all the coating off, you can see it towards the bottom but it isn't noticeable once done thankfully.
Finished O/S
Half way on the N/S, this time taking it right back all over
And finished, slightly better end result than O/S but I put that down to practice!
A much better look now!
Next little jobs were to replace the gear knob insert and gear stick gaiter which suffered the common broken clips at the rear of the base
Old vs new
Old gaiter tucked in
It's the little things!
Another small job jobbed was to replace the boot struts after they decided to start to fail on the day I was using the car to move house, why do these things always happen at the most inappropriate times!?
The car has the Milltek cat back fitted which to me is a good alternative to the original as it really isn't that loud, especially when compared to my mx5 before however, I love induction noise on NA cars so ended up going the "Fatty" induction setup which has released the inner child again whenever you put your foot down! No doubt not actually that great in terms of performance but my arse can't tell the difference to standard, no pics of this though.
So that's pretty much it up to now, the to do list still has a few things on it
Source a boot carpet
Replace the rear tyres as it has ditchfinders fitted atm
Fit a wiper stalk with the adjustable intermittent as the current one does my head in!
Eventually get a mate to detail the car as the paintwork looks very dull with all the swirls in it.
Enough drivel, some pics in its current state
Cheers!
This is the only pic I have from when I bought it after getting it home parked next to my mx5 that it was replacing
Soon after buying the car I had started to draw up a list of the little bits and bobs that needed doing, first up was a trip to Ren7oaks to sort some bits which I was unable to including the aux belt. Next up was to sort the common problem of the yellowing headlights from UV damage. I ended up using the 3M kit as that seemed to give decent results with just using a drill and I'm happy with how they came out, the odd deeper scratch are still present but a whole lot better than they were.
Quite hard to capture the worst of it but hopefully gives an idea
Half way through on the O/S, this was the first one I did and wasn't too sure whether to take all the coating off, you can see it towards the bottom but it isn't noticeable once done thankfully.
Finished O/S
Half way on the N/S, this time taking it right back all over
And finished, slightly better end result than O/S but I put that down to practice!
A much better look now!
Next little jobs were to replace the gear knob insert and gear stick gaiter which suffered the common broken clips at the rear of the base
Old vs new
Old gaiter tucked in
It's the little things!
Another small job jobbed was to replace the boot struts after they decided to start to fail on the day I was using the car to move house, why do these things always happen at the most inappropriate times!?
The car has the Milltek cat back fitted which to me is a good alternative to the original as it really isn't that loud, especially when compared to my mx5 before however, I love induction noise on NA cars so ended up going the "Fatty" induction setup which has released the inner child again whenever you put your foot down! No doubt not actually that great in terms of performance but my arse can't tell the difference to standard, no pics of this though.
So that's pretty much it up to now, the to do list still has a few things on it
Source a boot carpet
Replace the rear tyres as it has ditchfinders fitted atm
Fit a wiper stalk with the adjustable intermittent as the current one does my head in!
Eventually get a mate to detail the car as the paintwork looks very dull with all the swirls in it.
Enough drivel, some pics in its current state
Cheers!
