Pearly White
Jorge Luptons VW Lupo
When we first start driving & pass our test we all have dreams & aspirations on what our first car will be, how it will look & what you will do to it..making it your own through smaller details. Now, sometimes these dreams are achieveable, others aren't. To say Jorge Luptons dream was unachieveable isnt exactly true, it was achieveable but just out of reach. We all want something that will look nice & be cool but at the same time as cheap & cheerful as possible.
On passing his test Jorge wanted a VAG, straight away, more specifically a VW Lupo, no questions asked. But unfortunately this was just out of reach! Settling for a Renault Clio instead he'd finally got his first car! Although this did not end well as it ended up upside down in a ditch due to bad road conditions. In need of a car & fast, Jorge stumbled across a bargain on Ebay, an innocent little red metro. After seeing some at shows he did his homeowork, realising how easily they could be modified, & how cheap they were to run Jorge bagged himself a £200 ebay bargain. In Jorges words "It was a shed" he set about ratting it up a little bit by covering panels in stickers, chalk board paint, silly paint schemes, slamming it by emptying the oil suspension tanks & rolling extremely hard as i'd been out in it many a time. It was a fun car to own & he set about getting to shows, cruises & modifying it daily..It had a lot of hate from other scene enthuasists, but, it was different, and at the end of a day you make a car to your ideas, no one else's. Unfortunately due to an unwanted amount of police attention locally this had to go...
After a few carless months he found 'Pearl' on ebay, taking the trip to Barnsley to view it he soon fell in love with it & had to have it, Paying in the area of £1300 he picked up this pearly white Lupo and set about making his mark, which lead to help from fellow lupo owning friends. Bought completely standard straight away Jorge set about the stance & overall sitting of the car. Sitting it on 7 & 8J banded steelies then swiftly adding some retro cool Mercedes wheel trims & coilovers, with them wound down to a nice low yet still reasonably suitable for every day use it now sits how it does, although more lows are on the way with camber & maybe more stretch & poke even! Purchasing a roof rack to go on it too maybe add some cool additions for shows, much like the pair of 13" steelies he has & 2 extra merc trims. Bump strips removed for a cleaner look.
For me the Jorge has the stance dialed in just right, with maybe a few more rear lows & a cheeky bit of negative camber he'll definately be onto a winner with Pearl. The Merc trims are definately something different & ertainly something i've never seen done before which really makes the car stand out from others! Considering that the local area to Jorge is over run by Lupos but no 2 are the same other than colour, no 2 have the same mods & have all been personally fettled & modded by their loving owners, doing there best to make them stand out from any other. For me it's the trims that really set this car, other than that gleaming white paint work the poke from the banded steels this car definately has a good chance of being noticed. After parking it next to another Lupo for a quick Monster energy stop at the Co-op (But forgetting to take a photo) We noticed the smallest different that a simple drop can make to a whole car! Its not about who has he most money to throw at there cars but making improvements through smaller things such as the removing the rub strips, all being said getting a good, clean stance can cost time & most certainly money but looking at Jorge's lupo is just one example thatr you dont need a lot, Banded steels are reasonably cheap these days & seem to be working back onto cars over winter, saving the cleaner, more expensive show shoes in the garage for summer! But i'd be happy to run these as main show wheels, especially with those trims which add a great amount of class to the car..so subtle yet make such a difference & add to the overall clean look Jorge has gone for.
Future Plans involve a possible Lupo 3L bumper swap at some point which can only be imported from Germany as they were never sold or produced over here in the UK. Also soon to come are some Mk4 Golf Recaro's & a Team 280 Momo wheel. Then swapping over the fading plastics for new black items again to make it pop more with the pearly white paint.
Stanced.Imaging would like to thank Jorge for letting us shoot the car in such diffucult conditions with weather changes every 5 minutes & obstructions at locations too. After finding a quiet single track country lane (Which we sort of blocked) we had 20 mins of traffic free shooting before having 5 cars all come down the road in 5 mintues, where another road ran along side to take you to the same place, these cars pulled down towards us, saw what we were doing yet still continued to attempt to pass this way instead of using the parralell road...
Jorge would like to thank All close friends & family for the hours of help provided in searching, purchasing & modifying the Lupo, the Lads over at SquatSquad for all the help & supprt provided & being a 2nd family & all round top lads. It wouldn't be the same if not for them, and lastly but certainly not least important Jorge would like to thank all Haters who only pushed him further into modifying..ever since day one of owning the metro they were there, awaiting Jorges every last move to hate on whatever they could
Peace Out,
Slater O'Brien
Stanced.Imaging
Words & Photos by Slater
