My name is Sean. This website – the vw subdomain of it, anyhow – is dedicated to my Volkswagen obsession. For now that obsession rests pretty squarely on the shoulders of Katia, my 1989 Volkswagen Fox Wagon. While I’ve owned three other VWs (a B3 Passat sedan – Heidi, another BX wagon – Nina, and an A5 GTI – Leisl) Katia has, by far, consumed the most of my time and fascination – and will shortly have consumed the most money as well. She is currently undergoing a major modification/rebuild involving most all of her systems. That process has taken years and has taught me a lot about the hows, whys, dos, and don’ts of such projects. To point, after all these years, she’s nowhere near being done. I suspect that stage one – the mechanical stage of this project – will be finished sometime this summer. Stages 2 and 3 – interior and paint – will occur as quickly as possible thereafter. But first for some back story:
Katia is a Zermat colored wagon with black and gray interior and the ultra-rare rear package shelf. I purchased her from my brother, Matt, after she suffered total engine failure. My previous Fox wagon, Nina, had recently been pulled out of service due to some serious rust issues. I planned placing Nina’s engine in Katia – a simple in/out operation. But I’d purchased Nina as a project car, and thus Katia was doomed to be one as well. Pulling a 69hp lump out of one car and putting it into another hardly seemed exciting.
My ideas for Nina were scattered. I had always been, somewhat, into in-car entertainment and toyed with the idea of putting in televisions and subwoofers. I thought about smoothing the wagon floor and turning it into a sleeping area for road trips. I had no real clear idea of what I wanted. It didn’t help that I’d never driven her. I brought her home and parked her (along with a ticket for driving a vehicle with tags registered to another vehicle, driving an uninsured vehicle, and driving an unregistered vehicle). I had, however, driven Katia – and what a blast that was. 69 horsepower in an 1800 lb car is considerably more enjoyable than 200 in a 3600 lb car. Promise.
My brief experience with Katia as a running car solidified my plans for her. She would be a performance car.
Looking around on the VW Vortex I discovered an Audi 3A engine for sale – only $150. Contacting the seller, Chris, I discovered that it was already gone. He did, however, have a VW 9A engine available if I wanted it – and having a soft spot in his heart Foxes he agreed to help me prep the block for installation. A simple 2.0 swap. Nothing more. It would take the car to 115hp probably – and that ought to be enough for anyone in a Fox.
Well, if you’re reading this, you know it never works that way. That’s where this all started. It certainly hasn’t ended there.