An old friend came back to fifteen52 recently for a bit of spa-type refreshment.

Though the driveline and exterior facets of the old Cabby have been good as new for a while now, the interior has certainly been lagging behind. The torn front seats were replaced with a set of Mk2 GTI-sourced Recaro buckets, and we got straight to work modifying the seat brackets to work with the Mk3 chassis seat rails. Since the Recaros are outfitted with height-adjustable seat bases, we took the opportunity to wire them up at the same time we were fabbing the brackets.

Once the seats were securely situated, we drove the VR6 Cabrio over to our good friend, Tom Kelley, of Sarasota's Kelly's Upholstery. Since the Cabby had already been treated to new black leather and red-stitched shift and e-brake boots, our customer decided to continue the black and red theme throughout the interior. Materials were chosen and Tom got to work on the transformation. Faithful to the OE stitch patterns, Tom covered the seats and door panels in high grade leather. Rather than simply covering flat vinyl door armrests with leather and calling it a day, Tom spent time adding foam in order to mimic the "puffy" armrests found on some versions of the early model Cabrios (before some serious VWoA cost-cutting took effect).

As you can see, the effect is a true transformation and our owners couldn't be happier. What was once a fairly tired, wimpy and ratty VW is now a reborn and fully transformed VR6 powered beauty.

We expect to see the Cabrio back once again, but this time rather than cosmetic enhancements being on the agenda, we'll be paying more attention to respiratory fitness and strength training.