Let's hear a little bit about the driver - What's your name and where are you from?
Hey, I’m Damian and I’m from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
What got you into modifying cars and what kept you in it?
I feel like I got into cars pretty early since I grew up in what I like to consider the peak of racing games with Need For Speed Underground and Gran Turismo 4. Those were big inspirations for me. There was also a guy that would play hockey at the school near my house growing up that had a Candy White MK5 GTI with a Votex kit that made me want to eventually own one as well.
Jumping ahead many years, I bought my first car, a 2005 Mazda RX8, that I eventually started modifying partly because it was what I wanted to do and partly out of necessity for keeping it alive. That didn’t last long. So after 6 months of owning the car, I already needed a new one. That’s when I found my MK5.
Tell us about your ride, what is it?
I currently drive my 2008 GTI, United Grey under the Ivory Cream wrap. I’ve owned this since my RX8 became an ornament in my driveway in 2017 and have been slowly building it since. It started out as getting it back in good shape as a daily and quickly turned into “I’m turning this into the car that kid me wanted to have when he grew up”. 8ish years later, I’m almost where I want it to be. I’m also in the process of building a MK5 from the ground up.
Exterior Mods?
On the exterior, I’ve slowly put together a full Thunder Bunny kit over the years which I did all because I saw the one that Neuspeed built for SEMA. As the true VW enthusiast that I am, I decided to put my car on air and threw some upsized BBS RSs on it. I’ve very slightly lightened the car by adding carbon MK6 mirror caps and a hood from Seibon. I eventually got tired of my car being gray, so I took it to my friends at Camel City Wraps to give me something new.
Interior Mods?
On the inside, I did a lot of swapping after I learned how similar the MK6 is to the MK5. To start, I changed out the stock plaid seats with the set of Corbeau seats that made me rethink the whole color scheme of my build. I swapped out the stock steering wheel to a custom carbon MK6 wheel to match the seats. After quite a bit of saving and trading, I brought the car to my friend Christian at Stitchcraft to wrap my newly acquired MK6 dash and really any interior component I could put fabric on. I wanted to mimic how I’ve seen the builds in Europe. I also can’t forget about my custom BFI shift knob. Last on the interior is my trunk, which I had my vision brought to life by Ninety4.co.
Anything special under the hood?
Under the hood, I’ve taken off the stock valve cover (because I blew it up one winter) of my nearly 200k mile 2.0T FSI and replaced it with a custom powdercoated billet cover to match the exterior. To add to the carbon inside and outside the car, I added a Forge twintake and an intercooler. I’ve got it on a stage 2 tune and threw on an IE downpipe and an exhaust from XForce. I wanted to keep it kind of simple because at the end of the day, it’s still my daily even though I take it to every show I can.
What are some things you've done to your car that others might not notice?
Surprisingly, not many people notice that I swapped a handful of MK6 parts onto the car.
Anything else you'd like to add?
I’d really just like to thank all my friends that helped me get the community’s least favorite generation of the GTI to be sort of liked by some people. As much work as I’ve done myself, I couldn’t have done it without them. I’ve met so many people because of this car that I wouldn’t have otherwise because I don’t leave my house. This journey has been incredibly rewarding in every way possible.
Photo Credits:
- H.K. Miller
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