The following modifications are all my opinion and what I enjoy (But my car is pretty sexy, so I'm probably right about everything
).
Exterior Mods for "sleeper" look, more than just hte engine bay:
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Keep your color scheme low-key. Colors with starks contrasts will start to scream tuner, like black and gold, blue and white, etc. I found grey and red to push this a little bit back in the day, but now so many cars have a little red in them that my car doesn't look very out of place.
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Don't get to shiny. Chrome and metallic pieces will stand out. Stick with glosses that are less shiny.
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Don't go full matte. This will stand out, plain and simple. And, it is really unattractive when it's dirty.
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Badgless Grille. I like the VW emblem, most of us do. But when you remove it from the front, your car looks even more non-descript to the average person. To us enthusiats though, it sticks out like a sore thumb. Depends on what you like here, I chose to do badgeless for mine, no regrets at all. Often times, when I roll up on people on the highway to challenge them, I can see them in their mirror looking back and forth at my car. I like to think this is because they don't know what I am driving because I took the VW off. This makes me smile.
*** If you do this, you have to deal with the space left in the hood where the top of the badge
used to be. Most badgeless grille kits come with a little plastic piece you can glue to your hood to fill in the gap. I had this piece painted over when I did restoration work on my hood, looks fine.
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Custom Lettering. This is not for everyone and can be done wrong. I threw "Huckleberry" in glossy black on the back of my GTI, where "GTI" would normally be. My family and I affectionately refer to this car as the Huckleberry.
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Custom Stickers. There are websites where you can get stickers made in color schemes that match whatever you're going for at the size you want. Less is more.
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Stickers under your hood. I often develop good relationships with mechanics or companies I do business with. I want their stickers somewhere on my car, but I don't want to look like a sponsored race car. So, under the hood they go. This has been great for me. When I am out and about and I run into another enthusiast (which happens more often then you would think) I usually pop the hood and talk a little bit about my modifications, walking through some of the stickers. I also think it's funny when I pop the hood for a friend who doesn't know much about cars and they always go "woah".
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CLEAN. Take care of your car. Even with no modifications, we have beautiful cars. The MK6 looks better and better with age. Simple-enough right? Learn how to wash the car and it keep as pristine as possible. Well, this is a whole other topic. In short, after having a certain amount of professional work done to my car to restore it (back in 2021), I have developed a fairly easy regiment that keeps it as close to show-condition as possible with every wash, while protecting it and minimizing how often I have to wax it. When my car is clean, it looks almost new. It takes me 1.5 hours, every 2-3 weeks.
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Window Tint. It makes a difference. Choose quality though, bubbling is ugly.
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Rear Diffuser. I happened to find a cheap diffuser from Walmart. This will push the idea of a sleeper, but depending on your exhaust tips it may also bring together the rear of the car as well. I think this was the case with mine.
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Rear Spats. These go with a rear diffuser. Again, can take too much away from the sleeper idea though.
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Headlights/Tailights. You can get new ones that match our MK6's pretty well. Mine came with some MK7.5 knock-offs. I like the red-trim. They push the limit, make my car look more like a racer, but they also work great with my color-scheme. Blacking out your tailights can look great, but going too far can look bad. My car has euro-spec chery red. They are fantastic. Also, you can get sequential lights, which some people think are really cool (like me!).
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Side lights. See those little yellow lights on your front side-panels? You can get replacements that are "smoked". Depending on your color scheme, this can be a nice touch.
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Wiper-delete. Remove that rear windshield wiper for a different look on your hatch.
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Windshield Wipers. You can change these out completely, but there aren't any designs that really enhance the car much. However, you can paint or plasti-dip them, but anything other than black might look weird. The biggest thing is to keep them looking new and to that end, plasti-dipping them restores and protects that like-new finish.
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Rear-Badge. We all do this because it's so damn cool. There are a lot of options out there. I don't recommend a Matte finish, it fades and looks horrible. And, when you're car is mostly gloss it just doesn't match well. You can also get stickers that go behind the badge, or you can paint that area as well. It's not to difficult.
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Door Handles. This is not for everyone. You can replace your door handles with a contrasting color or pattern. For example, white/red car with black handles. I put carbon-fiber imitation covers on mine because I am cheap, but they look great. You don't even know they are on there until you are within 6 feet of the car, which is just how I like it.
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Mirrors. This is not for everyone. You can get different mirrors with various shapes andd designs. You could replace the cover. I did this to match my door handles with a cheap carbon-fiber pattern. It had the same effect, you don't notice them until you are within 6 feet of the car.
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Paint the top. Like the MK7.5, you could paint the top of your car black. It's a neat contrast to the main body.
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Front license-plate/holes. If you're not legally required a front-license plate, then you can get a decorative one. There are loads of cusomiseable options out there. The euro ones look good in my opinion, but they go against the sleeper idea a little too much. Alternatively, filling in the holes in the bumper really makes the front look good. I have little plastic covers because I am cheap. Filling them in all the way would be best.
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