Friday, September 19, 2014

Hot flushes - Ramiz Isaacs’ MK5 on Air


Rosey, one of those cars that really no amount of photos can really do justice to how amazing she really is. Ramiz often refers to her as his baby, even though this might be cliche in most instances but in Ramiz’s case it almost literally is. He pampers this car with more products than he uses to take care of himself. He has special allocated times in his weekly routine just to spend time waxing and detailing every little corner and curve. So setting the tone to the amount of love put into this car we bring you the journey Ramiz and this MK5 have taken.


In March 2006 Ramiz was in search of a 2002 Audi S3 but he felt that the prices were still slightly too high and might as well search for a MK5 instead. He went to his local dealership and the only colours they had were white or black but he had his heart set on red and placed a special order and decided to wait it out a few months and finally in September, Rosey had arrived.


Before Rosey even was close to arriving in South Africa, Ramiz had already purchased a variety of parts that would make this MK5 his own. These included Reiger front spoiler and splitters and 18” Work Euroline SL 2-piece split rims and H&R lowering springs.


In 2008, Ramiz decided to get a bit more serious with his MK5 and ordered his air suspension as well as a set of 19” Work VS-XX 3-Piece wheels and opted to go for the Bag-over-coil setup. Ramiz being a member and prowling every informative MK5 forum online resulted in him having the know of every ins and outs on a MK5. This resulted in him being way ahead of the MK5 Game in South Africa (SA), namely because he is the first bagged MK5 in SA and possibly the first Volkswagen too.


Although Ramiz purchased the air suspension and wheels in 2008 it wasn’t only until 2010 where everything was actually fitted. Even with the kit laying gathering dust for two years Ramiz was still the first MK5 on Air in SA. I met Ramiz in 2010 a few months before he actually decided to fit the air suspension. I can still remember clearly picking up the VIAIR compressor and UVAir bags because this was my first time actually getting to hold one of these bad boys.


Few months after this we had a small meet up in Cape Town Stadium and when we rocked up there Ramiz was one of the first guys there and looking at is his car parked it looked unusually low. At this moment I knew he finally got the kit fitted and he totally surprised everyone at the meet up and at probably the rest of South Africa as well. We feature Rosey rocking the 19” VS-XXs a few features back along with Bob’s Static Candy White MK5.


A few years later, Ramiz got tired of this look and the inevitable search for more lows commenced. Ramiz ordered even shorter struts as well as sway bar links from Zubair Sayed (WheelsandMore in Jozi) including some wheel hardware for a current wheel project he is busy building for Rosey’s next look. 


But in the meantime he decided to refurb these 17x8.5J Work 2-piece wheels and these were done by International Rim Repair (IRR in Wynberg, Cape Town). They sprayed the centres in cream Tusk and super high polished the lips and these are held together with black powder coated assembly bolts. Finally they are wrapped up with Falken 912 Rubber, 195/40 up front and 205/40 in the rear.


So currently, this is just a temporary setup until Ramiz finally completes he’s new split wheel project. He intends to finish it for the end of this year. So stay tuned because we’ll surely bring you a feature on Rosey next wheel fitment.



Photos by: Achmat Booley
Words: Tauriq Ajam