Some of you may already know and hopefully most people wont, this project was purchased by Darkside From Clive ( missingmyvrs - Briskoda Forum) the week before Christmas 2017. He purchased the car from Richard (BossFox - Briskoda Forum), here is the previous thread -

https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/243854-citigo-go-a-citigo-with-more-go/.

We were alerted to the availability of the car by a random Facebook message and within a couple of days the trip ‘darn sarth’ was scheduled, the next few months would not be easy...

After a good chinwag with Clive (more like an interrogation regarding the proposed spec, which remained secret until the car was presented in person!) The car was loaded onto our trusty T5 Transporter ready for the 220 mile journey back to HQ in Barnsley, South Yorkshire.

If you are inpatient and can't wait to see how the car looks now, here is the full spec list - https://www.darksidedevelopments.co.uk/citigo-4-motion-2-0-tdi-16v-common-rail/

So the first job when getting back to Darkside HQ was to unload, have a good look around, get a plan together for the full build and make a list of parts that need to be ordered.

Lots of little parts were missing that you would hope were there (bonnet pull, boot locks, wiper mountings cut etc), and a good chunk of the fabrication and machining that was already done needed to be rectified or adjusted, Engine Mounts, Wishbones, Pedal box, brakes, the list goes on!

The engine choice was already made the day we set eyes on the car. Basically an engine specification similar to the Arosa, mated to an AWD 02M Gearbox with Ibiza Cupra TDI Ratios, linked to the haldex setup at the back, then finished off with Limited Slip Quaife ATB Differentials Front and Rear.

By the end of January we had the fully built engine installed and running. Mid February the car was fully MOT ready and passed with flying colours. We still had a lot of finishing touches and lots of specification changes (sounds easy typing that now…) to get to where we are now.

Tuning was always going to be a big job, and finding the time between a jam packed diary has been quite difficult, and there is much more to come. We only have a GTB2260vk on there running moderate boost and 280hp until we have proven the chassis. The engine should be able to kick out a reliable 360bhp that will take punishment for 100’s of miles a day on track with the GTD2872vr turbo we plan to run. We didn’t have time to install the WON REVO Nitrous system either but that will come later!

When news got out that we had a new project, we were approached by a few Magazines and asked if we would keep the project under wraps until after the first photoshoot that was planned to happen on the 28th of March. It was a difficult decision, as we would have to limit what we could post on social media and who we could involve in the project.

I’m sure we had a mole somewhere, as quite a few people did know what was going on but thankfully the nice guys kept their mouth shut :)

We had to hold off transferring the TD1 1 AWD number plate onto the car for obvious reasons.

Tuesday 27th mid afternoon the CitiGo and our trusty Ibiza track car were loaded onto the truck and trailer ready to head to Snetterton Circuit for the cars first shakedown. We had very few road miles on the car due to the last minute issues we faced so we had to cross our fingers (sorry Paul!) and hope everything was alright. Also, this was my first ever drive since passing my trailer test so the pressure was never off, haha.

We arrived at Snetterton just before 9pm to unload and hide the car away in our Garage ready for the day ahead...

Wednesday Morning bright and early Adam Walker was on hand at to shoot the car for the upcoming VWG Magazine feature, be sure to keep your eyes out for that in the next few months!

This would be the first time Clive saw the car, we didn't release any information during the build so he was shocked when he saw how far the car had come since last time he saw it back in December, a passenger ride was scheduled for after lunch. Luckily we fitted a larger passenger seat especially for this day, Sorry Clive!

The car was amazing on track, we expected the soft springs and no front ARB to upset the handling slightly but we had a good time and impressed a few people. We had a lot of people saying the short wheel base and narrow track would cause issues but looks can be deceptive. Our CitiGo has a 2.45m Wheel Base and 1.65m track width compared to a standard Fabia’s 2.46 & 1.64m, its still short for a car with plenty of shove from the rear end but not as bad as you might first think.

With ‘only’ 280bhp and weighing in at 1160kg without the 2 fat people on board it was never going to be the fastest car on track. The rain helped show the benefit of the the Quattro Haldex system compared to our FWD Ibiza and was the main reason this project was interesting to us in the first place.

A Front Wheel Drive version of this would have been immensely cheaper and much easier to build, and on a dry track likely faster but where is the fun in that...

Maybe in the future we will look to build the car into a replica of the WRC car Skoda, No reply from Skoda Motorsport regarding the panels so if anyone can help us with that, please get in touch!

I’ll be making further posts about the car build showing some of the major hurdles we faced along the way, some expected and most of them certainly unexpected! For updates follow our Briskoda Build Thread here - https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/447378-citigo-go-reincarnated-by-darkside-first-tdi-citigo/

Oh and here's a photo we took while servicing a stock CitiGo a few weeks ago :)

The unveiling of the CitiGo went down pretty well on Social Media!