Words by Marcus Boothby
Back in January, I bought my first car. I ended up buying a 2005 Volkswagen Lupo 1.4 S for £850 and had about 86,000 miles on it at the time of purchase. It’s been an interesting experience owning the Lupo as it came with its fair share of ups and downs.
Back in March, I covered the buying the process and how much of a ball ache that was as I decided it was a great idea to go and buy it on a day where we had a snow storm and the car couldn’t cope. I’m not going to cover that ordeal again, but you can read it by clicking these words.
So, what’s happened in the past six months? Well, I’ve driven the Lupo about 3000 miles since buying it and spent about £1000 in getting new parts and improving it.
Maintenance and repairs
As I said, I have spent about £1000 on the Lupo since buying it as quite frankly, it was an absolute shed when I bought it. So, I’ve had to fit new brakes all round, new tires all round and had the water pump and timing belt changed. Oh, and a new battery.
Despite all this, the car needs even more work doing to it as it needs a new exhaust system, gearbox oil change and the suspension either needs raising up or replacing completely as it can be unbearable to drive. This means I have to spend at least another £300 before even considering other things that need to be addressed.
I crashed it
And then there’s the thing I don’t like to mention which is that I had an accident in the Lupo and to make matters worse, it was my fault. I was going through slow moving traffic in a village near where I live on a weirdly hot day back in April, and a fly decided it would be a great idea to go into my eye. I naturally tried to swat it out but I didn’t realise a car was stopped in front of me and I went into the back of it.
Sure, the speed of impact was about 10mph so damage wasn’t as bad as it could have been but it ruined the front of my Lupo, and bent in the bumper of the Mini Paceman I bumped into. Thankfully, damage on both the Lupo and the Mini was only cosmetic.
The damage on the Lupo was to the plastic grill, plastic indicator panel and bent up the number plate. I spent about two months searching for just the indicator panel alone, but I found one at a breakers yard, which came with a grill and an extra set of indicators. The best bit is that it cost me £20. However, I need to get it painted and fitted so I’m waiting for a dry, wind-free day to do that.
The good bits and the bad bits
Well, objectively speaking the Lupo is a fantastic little car. It’s surprisingly spacious for something so small and feels great to drive. Sure, it’s making weird noises all over the car but, it is 16 years old. It’s also incredibly cheap to run with a full tank of VPower costing £30-40 depending what the prices are like. I know I can get cheaper fuel but VPower isn’t that E10 stuff and I don’t really want to ruin the car more than it is, so I’m sticking to E5 fuel for now.
There are times though where I absolutely hate the car. I can’t take the car down some roads due to steep speed bumps or poor road surfaces and this is because of how low the bloody thing is. The exhaust also does my head in, especially at motorway speeds as the noise is deafening. The electric windows are on their last legs, especially the drivers side one as it has a mind of it’s own, so I leave it shut. Also, the passenger side door lock misbehaves too, with it either not locking or unlocking.
But the Lupo is famous on TikTok
That’s right, my little Lupo is weirdly popular on TikTok, with it amassing nearly a million views across all the videos it has been featured in since it made it’s debut on the platform in March 2021.
It all started with a series I started as a joke, with it being called “Neat things about my 2005 Volkswagen Lupo” which has now spanned into 8 videos and a few spin off ones, with the most popular one being “Not so neat things about my 2005 Volkswagen Lupo”. I want to expand the videos on TikTok with the help of the Lupo so there will be more content to come with it.
What’s next for the Lupo?
For now, the Lupo won’t be going anywhere soon as I still want to get some more use out of it until I have to MOT it in November. I need to get the car fixed and make it run nice as prices are going up now.
So in short, there will be more Lupo content on Motordiction in the coming months. Oh, and a full review is in the works.