For its time the GTE had a reasonably high specification interior, noticeably plusher and quieter than the base models. It also had a fair few toys like electrically adjusted and heated mirrors. During the 90s more and more of the extra features worked there way into the mainstream models. So by today's standards it's about average. Although seen as a medium hatch it is in the super mini class space wise. That's not a problem though! Small car, big engine is a recipe for fun.

One of the biggest toys is the digital dash display. Not to everyone's taste, some reviewers hated it. I love it. Early GTEs had a "power graph" rev display. Later ones had a more restrained semi circle rev display. The speed is shown with three large LED digits in the centre of the dash. Oil pressure, battery level, engine temperature and fuel level are shown with four bar charts. The odometer is still gear driven however.

The standard car was fitted with a Phillips auto reverse cassette deck and AM/FM receiver. It had four tinny speakers that must have cost, oh, 15p each. There were two in the dash, two by the rear parcel shelf. I managed to live with this for about 18 months. For over half of that time I had no radio, since I had a new front wing fitted without an aerial hole and never got round to fitting a roof mounted one.

Finally I snapped and had to get on with some ICE. I spoke a fair few people including Oxford Car Audio. I came up with a minimalist plan:

• One good head unit, like a Nakamichi single CD head unit
• Two decent 4" coaxial speakers in the dash
• Two 6 x 9 speakers in the rear

I started by fitting Pioneer TS-E1075 4" speakers into the front dash. These are supposed to be pretty good speakers. Fitting them was pretty simple - they are the same size as the original items. It takes a bit of patience to get them into place though. And a normal stubby screwdriver is too long to fit under the windscreen. I used an electric screwdriver tip as a mini screwdriver. Sadly the speakers didn't sound any better than the original ones. I hoped that this was because they were showing up the shortcomings of the cassette player. Not to worry though, a few weeks later I ripped all of the dash out and the radio went with it.

This all started when I needed to have the bulkhead welded. I started by removing the footwell carpets and then got carried away. The heater matrix was in the way so I removed all the dash and the matrix. In doing so I noticed how heavy the dash is (a good few Kg, especially the glove box), and also what a load of tat it is. I couldn't bring myself to refit it. Instead I plan a custom dash in Ally sheet or similar.

At the same time I became much more interested in what other weight I could lose. The underfloor sound deadening and heater duct was soon gone. Next up is the sunroof, electric mirrors, and any unused wiring.

More photos of the stripping process.

After stripping the original dash out I realised what a load of old tat it was. I couldn't bring myself to refit it. It was OK in its day, but I'm not really a fan of moulded Beige plastic. Instead I fancied making my own. The aim was to make it lighter and also to have some fun by making it a bit more rally slag style with toggle switches, push button start and with a more functional look. So I doused the dash in Petrol and performed a ritualistic burning of it. Good riddance. Bye bye crap.

Actually, you'd be surprised at how heavy the dash was, especially the glove box part of it. Driving around without a dash was odd at first. The car seemed very empty and spindley. The dash created an illusion of the car being a solid item, which it is definitely not.

I considered materials quite carefully. I started out assuming that Ally sheet would be the way to go. Then an ultra light material like Balsa wood appealed. I thought about covering it in Carbon fibre effect sheet. However, I don't like false finishes, so I looked into the real thing. I found that you can buy Carbon fibre matting and resin. But pre-set flat sheets appealed to me as being a bit simpler whilst still being the real thing.

I spent a fun evening with some cardboard trying out some ideas for the shape that I wanted. Eventually I never made a dash at all. I just housed the essential switches in an Aluminium pod.

Dash photos.

With the dash gone I started to notice how big and plasticky the standard GTE wheel was. Don't get me wrong, it's fine at it's job. However I fancied something a bit smaller and racier. I got searching on Ebay and soon came across a Momo Apache which I bid £70 for. I won it too, essentially bagging the item for half price. When I was looking at the rest of the Momo range I decided that the Corse was my favourite wheel. Simple and elegant. Anyway, I was the owner of an Apache now. Luckily it was in Black since I don't really like the more garish colours.

With the interior stripped out and the steering wheel sorted, the seats started to look a bit out of place. Also I found myself having to cling onto the wheel for life when going round sharp bends on the track. So I started looking for some bucket seats. Since car parts always go cheap second hand I spent ages scouring the adverts and looking on Ebay. I found it difficult to source any seats this way. They were usually sold when I emailed or phoned. In the end I resigned myself to buying them new. I looked into what was available and decided that spending in the mid £100s would buy a slightly better seat than the budget £90 items. Something like Sparco Ultras looked good - light and quite cheap. So I decided to wait and save some money.

After a few months I found some seats for sale from a guy I knew on Migweb. They were Sparco Ultras! Three months old, hardly used, complete with harnesses and sliders. This was an offer too good to miss so I bought them.

To make them fit the car I had to buy suitable sub frames from Sparco. The other option is to weld some plates in an use their universal mounting kits.

When the sub frames arrived I was expecting parts that would bolt direct to the floor plan. Instead they were adapters that bolted to the original sliders.

Fitting took a lot lot longer than I expected. Mainly due to a bit of trial and error when it came to the harness mounts and various other bits. Luckily, I had loads of bolts and washers which had come with the seats.

The seats felt great to sit in, but I was a bit bothered that they were about 1" higher if you allowed for the sag of the original seats. This was due to the sub frames adding a lot of height because they bolted to the original sliders in the car.

On the road the seats felt great. Really good.

I did want to lower the seats. Several ideas occurred to me. A favourite was to hack up the Astra mounts and have some flat plate welded to them so that I could then use the Sparco sliders. This would lower the seats about 50mm.

A simpler idea was to drill out some different holes in the mating parts. This would allow me to drop the seats about 40mm which would be just about acceptable I suppose.

Eventually, I did it the proper way and welded bars into the shell which the Sparco sliders were bolted to. Full story here.

 I weighed all the seat parts. The table below shows various configuration options.

GTE standard		Sparco Ultra, sub frames		Sparco Ultra, Nova frames		Sparco Ultra, custom mounts, non adjustable
Recaro	13.5 Kg	Sparco seat	5.6 Kg	Sparco seat	5.6 Kg	Sparco seat	5.6 Kg
		Sub frame	1.7 Kg	Slider	2.2 Kg
Astra mount	4.7 Kg	Astra mount	4.7 Kg	Mount frame	3.5 Kg	Mounts	2 Kg
Total	18.2 Kg	Total	12 Kg	Total	11.3	Total	7.6 Kg
		Saving	6.2 Kg	Saving	6.9 Kg	Saving	10.6 Kg

Top

A roll cage has two purposes. Firstly it makes the car stronger so that if it's crashed or rolled the occupants have more chance of surviving intact. Secondly it improves the rigidity of the shell which tends to improve its handling and feel.

There are various types of cage, but they can be split into "bolt in" and "weld in" categories. A six point bolt in cage will suit most road cars and clubman racers. It is necessary to weld in the mounting plates. Some cages might not fit around sun roofs, rear seats, or parts of the dash board. Weld in cages generally involve taking the car off the road for a while and cutting some holes in the bulkhead so that parts can be attached to the front turrets. Big name bolt in roll cages cost just under £500.

I obtained mine second hand from a clubman rally car. It's a Safety Devices six point bolt in cage. I bought it complete with door bars (optional extras) and an additional welded in rear bar. It had been welded into the donor car, so I spent an entertaining afternoon with an angle grinder, lump hammer and chisel liberating it. It cost me £150 which I think is a bargain for £500 worth of parts in good condition.

This is covered in the suspension section. Full story.