Choco's Obnoxious Blue 1.2 S.

[Chocozai]

Good day!
Hope we are all feeling fine today!
I've recently become a proud part of the Seat brotherhood, and after some interest has been shown towards me, I've decided to make my own reader's ride thread.
First of all, I believe I need to tell you about the mentality behind my car's modification scheme.
I am not out to try to replicate any higher-spec models. And unfortunately, being a student, I have no budget to modify my car's performance in outrageous ways.
So, staying true to the “Euro” style, over the next year or so, my car will be receiving a clean, smooth, Euro-style makeover.
Something to bear in mind, of course, is that I am going to have to sell my car on someday – so nice things like fluorescent details, bonnet bras, and general Euro insanity aren't great ideas, however desirable, as they are very niche and vastly narrow my potential market.
So along with the Euro-style, it has to be appealing to all.
Smooth and subtle are the buzzwords here.
And so, on to the show.

This was the latest "beauty shot" of my car, which reflects it in a near-current state.

 

[Chocozai]

I bought my 2002 Seat Ibiza 1.2S in September 2009 from a lovely family-owned garage in Surrey. Not entirely sure what the shade of blue is called – I like to call it “Obnoxious Blue”. Because it is very, very blue. With 65k on the clock, free MOT and a 1-year warranty, I like to think it was a pretty good deal.
Here it is, in the state I bought it in.

First things first – I've always had problems with my car's interior. It's just so drab and gray, and the previous owners had covered all the seats in stains. I knew I'd had to do something about them – not even the complimentary valeting helped. As a temporary fix, I popped down to the local Primark (I study in Cardiff!) and bought two matching T-shirts for the grand price of £3. Mad, brash, eye-burning colours – they certainly did the job. However, to date, they do greatly let the look of the car down – with the exterior smoothed, they look damn right stupid. But I'll keep them for old time's sake until I replace my now-busted seats.

 

[Chocozai]

First mod done to the exterior – a controversial one on SCnet, I'm fully aware, is installing all three exterior chrome grilles. But the de-chromed motorsport look isn't what I'm going for, and I do believe they help modernise the look of the car. Non-Seat motoring enthusiasts in my circle also approve of them. It's just some of you guys here that seem against them!

 

[Chocozai]

The next thing to be done was to replace the badges on the tailgate with the I B I Z A badging of the facelifted model. Using the good old boiled water and teeth floss method, debadging was a doddle. I preferred the aesthetics of the debadged tailgate to the facelifted, but badged one. So the hatch remained debadged.

 

[Chocozai]

The standard steelies were my biggest gripe with the car, but this was a rather pricey problem to rectify. After scouring the interwebs for a set of Skoda Fabia VRS alloys, I found a gorgeous set of 15” BBS RZ's with new tires on Ebay for £100. Delivery plus spigot rings brought the total paid for a set of BBS's and new tires to a meagre £200. Excellente!
They may be smaller than what many others are rolling on, but for the money paid I think I got a pretty good deal. It's not the size of the alloys that really matter in my opinion, anyway, 15” being the minimum – it's the ride height that's the issue. Something I don't want to touch for the moment, as I rather like the practicality.

 

[Chocozai]

I've always admired the metal-pressed plates of the Dubscene vehicles, and thought they'd look pretty good on a small hatchback with a German connection.
Dubmeister do road-legal ones, so they were next on my list. For £50, I got both plates, plus custom numberplate holders.

P.S. Those aren't my real plates of course. Just a quick photoshop for safety reasons.

 

[Chocozai]

My lights came next – blue sidelights, white main bulbs and a brilliant blue LED reversing light.
I found a set of sidelights on Ebay, paid £2.50 for 2 pairs and delivery and, of course, I went through them in about a month. Can anyone recommend me anything better? The Xenon-look main bulbs (OEM) don't look Xenon at all, but they definitely improve brightness and night visibility. Good purchase.

 

[Chocozai]

Turning my attention to the interior, I purchased what are most probably the best-loved OEM accessories on SCnet – the chrome interior pack. I managed to install them, but the centre ones were buggers – I scratched up my dash in the process. Masking – a lesson for next time!

 

[Chocozai]

A mate of mine gave me an “Angry Faic” sticker from Newgrounds.com. It lives on my rear window, just under my spoiler. It's quite subtle, but adds a great spot of colour and attitude to the car.

 

[TubbyTwo]

Like it!

 

[Chocozai]

Next up was the rear wing – I wanted to go for a Fiesta Zetec / Civic R look without being too chavvy, whilst finding an alternative to the Cupra spoiler. ABT-Sportsline (http://www.abt-sportsline.de/en/tuning/shop/Seat-Ibiza-6L-Karosserie_418_117_5/) do a great range of SEAT styling parts – unfortunately, being predominantly Audi and VW tuners, I thought their prices would be extortionate. Now only that, but they never quoted me on the spoiler, so that was them crossed out.
I decided to re-visit an old friend of mine, Lester tuning of Italy (where I've moved away from last August), who, amongst some absolutely vile bodykits (although the range is astonishing!), had a spoiler that was in no way worse than the ABT one. Through a UK distributor I obtained a spoiler and a set of eyelid brows. The spoiler I've since had fitted, but the eyelids don't really fit into the whole smooth look – so they're still lying around, as I think about what to do with them. To fit them? Or not to fit them? Hmm. If anyone's interested in them, we could discuss something.

 

[Chocozai]

I've had a few accessories for a while now, waiting around without a job. “The Beethy's the perfect place to implement them!”, I thought. Specifically, I had a set of Sparco seatbelt cushions and a Momo Anatomico black leather gearknob (beautiful shape!). The Sparco seatbelts were a nightmare paired with the worn seatbelt mechanism which refused to retract with them on.
The Momo Anatomico, on the other hand, could yet be made to fit. After chasing down Momo and getting a fitting kit off them, I set about hacking off my original gearknob to fit the Momo. Unfortunately, it was the Long version – so it felt like I was driving a van.
I set upon the gear shaft with my trusty hacksaw, and after a good half hour of labour, I significantly shortened it, so the gearknob was sitting at a good height.
I failed to make the original gaitor sit on it properly, and today manned up and tore it out. My replacement black leather Richbrook one, however, was too small to cover the gap, so I'm now gaitorless.

 

[Chocozai]

To match the Richbrook leather gaitor I had pre-emptively installed a Richbrook handbrake. My original base-spec one was floppy and kept pulling off, so it had to go. The “excellent” local stealer in Cardiff quoted me £60 for a Cupra handbrake cover (how they were wrong!), hence the Richbrook one. It does look rather gaudy and extravagant, but it's solidly built. The chrome and leather match up to my other interior parts, and with a good clean and shine, the black plastics, shouldn't look to bad next to it either.

 

[Chocozai]

How could I not..?

 

[Chocozai]

Discuss.

 

[Chocozai]

Like it!

Thanks mate!

 

[Veyron]

Damn, That's looking nice! How did you do the Centre chrome vent surrounds in the end?

I am gonna make a readers ride thread soon i think but need some rims

 

[ibiza64]

looking good mate, like the chrome pack in and out, and the new gear stick. not too keen on the spoiler, im goin for a cupra one but each to their own where did you get the leather handbrake gaiter from and is it diff to fit?

 

[Chocozai]

Damn, That's looking nice! How did you do the Centre chrome vent surrounds in the end?

I am gonna make a readers ride thread soon i think but need some rims

I pushed them in, and had to remove the centre panel to finish the job because of it!
Cheers mate, I'm telling you, rims are all you need to set the car off! That's a great idea.

looking good mate, like the chrome pack in and out, and the new gear stick. not too keen on the spoiler, im goin for a cupra one but each to their own where did you get the leather handbrake gaiter from and is it diff to fit?

http://www.richbrook-styling.co.uk/hand-brake-and-gear-shaft-gaiters/hand-brake-gaiters/28
+
http://www.richbrook-styling.co.uk/hand-brake-handles/handle-with-grips/110
=
That works out to about £55. Halfords are a Richbrook dealer, order through them to avoid delivery costs. Ripspeed do a ripoff series of Richbrook's gaiters, a similar leather one could be had for £13. In all fairness, they cost a whole load more than a Cupra version (again, I simply got the Richbrook because my dealer quoted me £60-70 for the Cupra!), and look a far lot more controversial. And it was an absolute ******* to fit. It was all fine, until you get to screwing on the collar - this was the hardest (physically) thing I've ever done - it was so tight!
As for the spoiler, I thought I'd try something other than the Cupra spoiler, I don't think it looks that different to it anyway.

And another thing, I was thinking of changing my gearknob to something like this - what do you think?

 

[Chocozai]

Immense peer pressure on these forums made me go out and get one of these little guys. It's so tiny!

to...

Good looking mod, for a fiver!