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My van has a new brother! I’ve wanted an Astra GTE for years, since I sold my last one in 1995 and this one was too good to turn down




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Loving that mate. Looks like a well looked after example. They had a digital dash in if I remember correctly?


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Very nice Stu, 8 or 16V?


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Currently an 8v Chris but I might swap it for a 16v if I can find a suitable donor, which is not so easy nowadays. I obviously wanted a 16v but there are currently only 89 left registered in the uk so they’re pretty rare and pretty expensive. There are only 200 8v’s left registered now too. This one was just such a good car I couldn’t turn it down. It’s had 4 owners, the first one for 19 years, the last guy had it 7 years and was a real enthusiast so has replaced almost every required part with new original bits. It was restored 10 years ago and I have all the photos on a memory stick of the body work being done. Original dealer number plates, original tax disc, original pdi sheet, every bit of history and receipt, 112k miles, everything works except the central locking on one door which I’ll look at. It’s like a new car.

Sounds very nice mate. I’ll be honest I’d be leaving it alone as it’ll always be worth more original than swapped.


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I’m not sure mate I mean a mk2 escort with a cosworth engine in it wouldn’t be worth less than if it has a 1600 cross flow in it. Or a caddy with a TSI in it rather than a 1.6tdi.

Blackberry has to be one of the nicest factory colours to be sprayed onto a light commercial vehicle ever!

And yours looks fn mint!

Gotta say as an Aussie, I'm jealous of the availability of parts that everyone in Europe and the UK has.

Thanks mate. Yes Blackberry is a lovely colour. I spray cars everyday and it’s still my favourite colour

I’ve been meaning to relocate my reverse camera for a while now as it’s ugly sat under the handle and it’s angle wasn’t great. I also wanted to delete the lock hole while I was there. Luckily I had a spare handle/plinth so I could play around and still keep the old one in place so I could use the van for work.

I worked out that you can actually completely remove the lock barrel and the handle/central locking system still works perfectly. As luck would have it, It turned out that my Alpine reverse camera lens fitted into the existing lock hole like it was made for it. So the plan to smooth the lock hole was scrapped in favour of a stealth flush fitting reverse camera















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That’s very neat Stu.


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Very tidy looking, you must have a good view of everything behind you.

That looks very factory indeed. Hole cut out looks like it was done with a punch and the colour match you have done from the pics looks spot on. Should have asked you to paint bits on my van

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Hi, new to the forum and have to embarrassingly admit I've just gone through the whole thread page by page.

Great build and attention to detail, have a quick question with regards to the air ride as I see you have a boot full of work equipment, how's the ride?

I've been looking into air ride kits but am unsure of ride quality as like yours it is used for work, is it easy to level if you load more into the rear of the van as the equipment I carry varies from day to day?

Any feedback appreciated

Thank you

So, 97 pages of awesomeness Barbel, if you have any buckshee ( free ) blackberry left over mods I’ll happily have them off you Equally if you fancy starting another Blackberry project you are welcome to have mine to practise some more on Same goes to all you serial modders….Doc, Lister, Hef, Dan@biali etc etc you folks have endless imagination

Bad boy van! Love it on the black wheels, looks hard as nails

Jealous of the Astra, more pics required

This van is absolutely unreal. Has to be my favourite van I’ve come across so far. I love that it’s also a work van! Credit where it’s due!


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