Boris The T25 - Where It All Began

'Boris' the T25 Pop-Top came to us in a bit of a mess, but with bags of character. The first thing in need of attention was his ailing 1.5 diesel engine, which had been in there - largely unattended to - from new, and was drastically low on power. We sourced a willing donor engine - a 1.9 diesel unit from a VW Polo - and set about the transplant.

Boris fired up first time with his new power-plant in situ and so it was time to tackle the next issue, the bodywork. Although his metal work and paint job was fairly intact, his colours were not; so it was down to the paint shop for Boris for a new coat of green and a covering for his 'aqua-marine' blue (yuk!). Next it was time for the rusty steel wheels to be stripped, coated and painted - along with some shiny new VW hub caps to finish them off.

Our in-house seamstress, Emma, made new dash and front seat upholstery to match Boris' new cream trim, as well as some striped rear seat covers and matching curtains. Brilliant!

Our success with Boris lead-on to converting and 'dressing-up' many other VDubs, and so here we are today, converting, servicing and modifying all types of Volkswagen, from T25 to T4, T5 and even the shiny new T6!

Anthony CooperT25