It was 1996 and I was walking through the college car park when I saw a Red Corrado and instantly fell in love with the beautiful shape and look of the VW Coupe. Only when I finally got round to buying a Corrado in September 2008 did I realise the coincidence of my 'love at first sight'-ing as I found that my newly purchased Corrado was registered in the same year I first saw one.

I know I probably paid a bit over the odds for my Corrado, but it was mint and it was exactly what I wanted, so who's to tell me how much to pay for something I'd wanted for 12 years. It has black leather interior with heated seats, sunroof, electic windows etc and compaired to the Peugeot 306 Diesel I had at the time, it didn't have an accelerator - it had a hyper space pedal.

The bloke I bought it from is a VW Mechanic who had been head hunted and was moving to Germany. It has loads of paperwork and all the vital work had been done. When I handed over the deposit, the owners Dad opened a bottle of champayne and gave me and my girlfriend a glass. Nice.

Since then the car has a few bits that I've added to my 'to-do' list to get her back up to the scratch.

The reason for me starting this Journal is because my girlfirend and I are taking the Corrado on a European Tour down to Northern Italy for a friends wedding, then back through Switzerland and poss Germany and Luxembourg. The highlights (apart from the wedding obviously) are going to be the Monaco F1 GP track in Monte Carlo (can't wait to turn the corner and boot it through the tunnel) and the Stelvio Pass on the way back. So I intend to take many pictures of the Corrado throughout the trip for you all to see.