Peugeot 205 GTI - L'Enfant Terrible
One of the many photoshoots of the extint Photorevvin', and the one that means most for me.
1984 was the year that unleashed the dream of many youngsters of that time. Why? It was in that year Peugeot launched one of the best and desired pocket rockets ever, making a great call to its badge, the Peugeot 205 GTI. And it was what happened to my friend Mário. His passion towards the Peugeot 205 would strike harder when his father bought a very interesting Peugeot 205 Dimma. Years later, the passion and dream led him to a completely irrational trade of an Audi A4 b5 1.8T for this GTI.
"The Graphite grey is The color for my perfect GTI, with these seats and orange blinkers. As soon as I saw this one, I decided it would be mine..."
And that's how the best histories begin...
Roadtrips with friends, visiting Portugal from north to south, many and many meets, hillclimbs or ocasional touges were, and are, part of the daily life of Mário with this 205 which, after some years, received some "minor" mods making it... A little more interesting, I say. In other words, it's a GTI in Mário's way.
And it was after these "minor" mods this session was made, at september's 20th of 2016. Nearly 2 years after, true, so what made me reedit this photoshoot and republish it? It's just I miss this double trouble, meetings and for it being one of my dream cars. Oh, and because I took a personal challenge to improve an old photoshoot!
There's no better place to photograph a 205 GTI than a place where car and driver become one, and that's why we were there, Sintra's Hill. Partly cloudy, but on a true summer day, the atmosphere was perfect to drive with windows open, radio off and listening to the 1.9 16V engine, feeling the sound echoing through the forest as we passed by.
We stopped halfway to Cabo da Roca to refresh ourselves with some fresh beers (on hot days, it makes perfect sense, but don't worry, we didn't drink more than necessary, we still had a few kilometers to do) and talk.
"It doesn't matter to me if this car is 30 years.
If only I could have one, it would be this one.
It's my dream car and I just have to take care of it the best I know and I can. "
It's my dream car and I just have to take care of it the best I know and I can. "
There is nothing better than man with its dreams being fulfilled, right? It was a good break between photos, where we could remember the roadtrips we did with our "gang", when I still had a Peugeot 205 XAD, where it blew up the refrigeration tubes, or spat sparks through the exhaust (it was problematic, but I loved it...). Well, this session wasn't finished yet, so we headed to Cabo da Roca, once again, accompanied by a beautiful symphony.
Cabo da Roca was as it usually is, full of tourists who wanted to visit the most western point of Europe... And full of tourists who couldn't remain indifferent to this GTI. Was it the powerful sound of this particular 205 or was it the memory of the "Sacré Numéro"? Or maybe both, I still can't answer it, only the memory of some fixed stares in us while we were passing by. Few photos were taken here due to the large crowd, so we went to the last spot. Guincho.
I remember as if it were today, nor did I want to believe that we bothered to put the GTI in this spot, considering the relegation, but it was worth it. Although I preferred that the session in this spot had been made nowadays due to the material upgrades I have made, I am not unhappy with the result. This particular GTI matches this spot quite well. And we couldn't have chosen a better place to end this session.
Now, all I have to do is enjoy the not-so-wonderful-actually-nothing-wonderful rise of Peugeot 205's price and wait for an appealing business to fulfill my dream...
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