We don’t need to tell you that early water-cooled VWs are cool, it’s a given. But while the obvious choices such as the Mk1 and 2 Golf GTI now get snapped up, there’s more of a niche following for the simpler, more mundane models like this ultra clean and actually very practical ‘90s ‘Breadvan’, for example. But we reckon it won’t be long before such gems start attracting a much wider audience among the VW loving fraternity…

There’s undoubtedly plenty of logic behind targeting the more run-of-the-mill Volkswagens from the late 1980s and early ‘90s. You see because it’s easy to lavish love on the sportier models, the workhorse everyday drivers from this period tended to get overlooked. These cars weren’t all that expensive to begin with, so once they’d changed hands a few times and perhaps failed an MoT by the time they’d reached their tenth birthday, they were only fetching a few hundred pounds in the classifieds. If they were particularly ratty, some even got scrapped. In short, few really good, low mileage cars have survived which makes them even more interesting… If you want a mint Mk2 GTI, no problem, there’s a few to choose from. But if you want a pristine Polo from the same era, you might have to look a bit harder.

Which is why we were delighted to find this 1991 Tornado Red Fox for sale at UKD near Bristol. It looks gleaming in the pictures, and it’s only covered 86,000 miles. As you can see, it’s got the original slotted steel wheels complete with the original VW centre caps and those black plastic bumpers look relatively unscuffed which is a bonus.

As it’s the Fox, it’s got a smart red and grey cloth trim – and there’s even the original Stereo which is refreshing because most were swiftly whipped out for a brash CD player when Argos started selling them for under a tenner a decade or so ago.

It’s the 1043cc model so it’s not quite as flaccid as some of the earlier Polos and actually, because there’s really nothing to it, the car will still feel reasonably nippy in town traffic. Amazingly, there have only been three previous owners in the past three decades which probably explains why it’s survived so well. And best of all, there’s a bulging history file to document everything that’s been done which instantly adds to its future collectability.

So how much will you have to pay for this quickly appreciating – and let’s face it – very practical runaround? A paltry £1,999. It would be hard to find anything this clean, and with this much potential collectability for the same price.

Ian

The opinions expressed here are the personal opinions of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of VW Heritage