Little Red Very
Special Car Indeed
When a relative passes away and lovingly leaves you their
car behind, it’s always going to be a special memento. Jemima has done her gran
proud by making her old polo a very special car indeed.
Most
of us can relate to the mindset of putting family first. You’re a bit of a cold
bugger if you can say you wouldn’t drop everything to help one of your nearest
and dearest in times of need. And nowhere has this notion rung truer than with
Jemima Cox and her Gran a few years back. After suffering a fall and struggling
to get around, Jemima offered to become her Gran’s personal chauffeur – kindly
assisting her in her everyday activities by becoming official driver of Granny’s
beloved Polo. “We developed a really strong bond during these few years,”
Jemima fondly recalls, unconditionally helping out her Gran on a daily basis.
Sadly, Jemima’s Gran passed away recently, leaving the motor in the more-than-
capable hands of Jemima, who was honoured to take the reins of the cherished
car, now affectionately nicknamed ‘Little Red’. Knowing that this car held some
serious sentimental value, Jemima decided that she’d really make the car her
own by adding her own personal touch: “I wanted to make something of the car,
and made a promise to myself that it would not go to waste,” she remembers.
After suffering a fall and struggling
to get around, Jemima offered to become her Gran’s personal chauffeur – kindly
assisting her in her everyday activities by becoming official driver of Granny’s
beloved Polo
By
her own admission, Jemima’s first attempts to mod the car didn’t end as well as
she’d planned. “At the time I had
little money to do anything, so settled for some cheap DIY mods, which were
utterly shit!” she admits. We won’t dwell in this dark corner of the car’s
history, but it did involve some skull ‘n’ crossbones vinyl wrap... Thankfully,
Jemima’s emo phase is now long behind her, and she can happily put these mods
to the back of her mind! After receiving some hate from the Dub scene for her
first efforts, Jemima reckons she finally got her modding head screwed on
straight at the beginning of last year, when the questionable bolt-on bits were
finally ripped off, and the Polo was taken to the bodyshop for a life-saving
procedure of a smoothed exterior and complete respray. Twinned with a subtle
drop onto some Axe EX8 rims and the 5-door ride was starting to feel frrrresh!
Jemima was content with running the Polo this way, but after hooking up with
her current boyfriend, things were yet again flipped upside-down as he drew her
ever-deeper into the world of serious fitment. “He is always on about getting
the style spot-on,” Jemima lovingly admits. Working as a team, the couple
decided that using super-rare parts was their only chance of making this little
motor stand out from the crowd.
Twinned with a subtle drop onto some
Axe EX8 rims and the 5-door ride was starting to feel fresh
A
chance encounter with some incredibly rare Modena Racing split rims got things
going nicely, but fitting them didn’t come without its teething troubles: “It
took us a few attempts to get tyres to fit these things, and once we found the
correct size, it turned out that the guy who had rebuilt the rims for us had snapped
a bolt through one of them,” Jemima tells us, making one of the wheels about as
airtight as a wicker basket. Once this minor detail was addressed, the couple
got into a nice groove of adding subtle touches to Little Red as and when they
could afford it. Jemima admits this grown-up idea went right out of the window
after she clapped her eyes on a Rayvern air-ride kit which was just screaming
to be fitted to her car. While most girls get fixated with their next pair of
shoes, for Jemima, getting her Polo bagged was her number one priority. “We had
one week to go before VW Festival in Leeds, to buy it and fit it, because I just
wasn’t going without it, that’s for sure!” As the show season progressed,
Jemima’s ideas for the car developed as she was exposed to the massive amount
of stanced goodness across the country. Although the outside of the Polo was
now looking on-point, the inside was trailing miserably behind. But no Bride or
Recaro nonsense was going to please this young lady, who had her sights aimed
slightly higher than that! Before she really knew what hit her, she and the
other half were driving home with a full Ferrari 360 Modena leather interior -
genius!
A full Ferrari 360 Modena leather
interior
Wanting
to get it fitted properly, the rear bench was sent away for a re-trim to Polos
make handy seats, too match the glorious looking front buckets, while Jemima’s
boyfriend got busy getting the seats to bolt into the car. We think you’ll
agree – the finished product is pretty damn pukka! By adding unique and
thoughtful touches to her treasured Little Red, Jemima now has a motor she’s
never going to want to get rid of – and can you blame her after looking at it?!
One thing’s for certain – her Gran would sure be proud of Jemima’s efforts. And
by the sounds of it there’s still loads to come.
