Greg, while I hear you in the fact that parts can usually be sourced elsewhere, we will NOT be using junkyard front spindles. Through the years of racing that Vantage has been running VW's we have found they only last one year here at home before they break. When they break, it usually ends with a wrote off car and a hurt driver. We are not interested in hurting drivers as we only do this for fun, cars can be replaced. As for the Japan or Chinese stuff, it is total crap. We couldn't even get a 15 lap race in at home without a rear stub axle bending or breaking. I tested the Rockwell hardness of the original 16V rear stubs against what we could buy today and they were on two different planets. That explained why the China stuff was junk. We do not want to go through the same thing with front end parts now as we did with stub axles. We searched high and low and found enough rear stub axles to get us by but, the front end is a different story now. What concerns me more is, let's say SCCA allows MKIII front spindles and brakes on the MKII, how long before VW discontinues the MKIII parts as well.

Luckily, in Canada there was a version of the MKIII diesel that was never sold in the US and this car had MKII front spindles on it with the same size brakes and all components. We just bought the last 4 in North America and they said they have no intention of reordering. So while we may be good for this year now, there is still next year to think about.

Brian
Vantage Motorsports