Yellowwheels.com automotive webzine and how it came about

We’ve been asked many times why we started a website called Yellowwheels.com. The answer lies parked on our office drive. Resplendent in a shade of yellow easy to spot in large car parks, our Colour Concept Golf GTi inspired the USP of the site. But before you point out the wheels are not yellow, a domain name search revealed that our first choice Yellowcar had been bagged by a spanish hire car company. No matter, Yellowwheels allows us to aim wider than the narrow confines of automotive yellowdom! Last autumn we featured a JCB loader, and we are not averse to dipping into cycling, trucking or motoring accessories: it’s whatever is special or appeals and if it’s yellow that’s a bonus . Just like our favourite, ultra-popular biking site www.pinkbike.com which is hardly littered with pink bikes, we named it yellowwheels to make it distinct and memorable rather than crazily specialised. Having said that, a yellow Lambo Gallardo is all that’s needed to make us salivate uncontrollably !

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Back to the car. Bought a few years back to replace an aging, MK2 VW GTi 16v, the yellow example, on our trawl through the ads, turned out to be the cream of the crop. This 1996 car was a special Colour Concept edition, created to flog the last batch of MK3′s and make way for the superior MK4. VW endowed it with outrageously bright yellow leather seat and door inserts, silver instrument dials and specced up a few other trimmings. Red, blue and green were the other colour options, but the banana yellow ones really hit the spot. Some Golf enthusiasts say the colour was the only good thing about the MK3 GTi, and we are inclined to agree – partially. The car was a disappointment after the verve and chuck-ability of our MK2 and the MK1 that preceded it. More luxury car than hot hatch tearaway, particularly in 5 door, 8 valve build, It serves it’s purpose well as family run-around and website mascot. It also is a fitting link back to our first VW Golf, an LS (with GTi black arches and wide rims), which was yellow!

The plan is to bring the yellow Golf back to a clean, mean, if not totally pristine state – hey, it gets used every day. This winter we sent it to Robin Dalwood’s bodyshop in Westcott for some minor dent filling and a partial new lick of paint. It then had new rear shock absorbers and other suspension bits and bobs renewed. We treated it to new badges and aerial before the photoshoot, but still on the to do list: urgent repairs to driver’s seat leather, fix headlining where it’s come adrift, and have those non-yellow wheels refurbished; colour still to be decided…

Local city Oxford was the venue for the photoshoot. Waiting till after midnight meant the streets were empty. The l-o-n-g exposures necessary for night shots made the odd pedestrian (or late night reveller) disappear – you just have to be very patient though.

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