William Shand - Peugeot RCZ GT
Growing up I was like most teenage boys and into cars. Anything which sounded quick, looked nice and was showing off I loved.
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Hello guys, my name's William Shand
I'm 28 years young and my current car is a Peugeot RCZ GT.
My Instagram is @willRCZ so please do give me a follow and it has all images from my car start to finish.
Growing up I was like most teenage boys and into cars. Anything which sounded quick, looked nice and was showing off I loved. I got my first car as soon as I turned 17 which was a Vauxhall Corsa C 1.0 (don't forget the twin port power) lol. I modified this and really enjoyed it but it was far too slow so it eventually had to go.
I then moved onto a Fiesta MK7.5 Sports van in blue (my favourite colour), this was a family company vehicle hence it being a van, however that didn't stop me so onto the modding I go. This was a 1.6 turbo diesel so was quite nippy, especially with the remap. I loved the car adding all the ST spec body kit and my favourite mod of all, car Audio.
I have had audio builds in all my cars from 6x9 and sub in my Corsa to twin subs big box and several amps in my Fiesta. As the years went on, I learnt more about audio install and how things work to improve my setups.
I didn't really get much time to spend on my cars as I worked full time (Mon-fri) early start late finish and on weekends I owned horses so my time went into them. (Very expensive and time consuming having 2 hobbies lol) after running the Fiesta into the ground (brought at 60k and went to 250k) before I decided to move on I then finally purchased my own car, what I had always wanted a Peugeot RCZ. Spending months deciding what specs I wanted (satnav, xenon headlights, quad tips) I finally settled for a 60 plate RCZ GT with 24K miles in 2016.
I fell in love with the car. I went for diesel as the car would also be a daily and potentially do a lot of miles but 2.0 and 163bhp I was loving it but I couldn't wait to put my stamp on the car. I have always wanted to be different to everyone else.
Not go for a Fiesta or a Golf like everyone else has. I wanted to stand out from the crowd. I will admit going for Peugeot wasn't my best choice but I found a way to deal with that problem! Debadge time! Haha. I had a few ideas up my sleeve on what I had planned for the car but I didn't quite expect to spend so much money on it! So audio wise again I started small and it got bigger and bigger.
The complete audio build is as follows. Custom pillars moulded by a close friend James Williams and wrapped by myself (I did body filler and smooth out to gloss black but didn't like it) so I wrapped them in roof lining material to match the roof. They house the Hybrid Audio X3 drivers which are a 3inch full range driver (RRP £800) I then have built my own footwell kicks. I cut holes in the kicks which vent up into the dash and down the side of the car. The box I made from fibreglass, milkshake (fibreglass and filler mixture) and wrapped myself. They house a Hybrid Audio 6x9 2ohm slim driver (RRP £330). I did have them in doors at first but it caused too much vibration. I then have an IB boot install. IB stands for Infinite Baffle.
Which is basically a baffle board bolted to the car with no air holes between the baffle front and back. It uses the car's boot as its box and is a great setup for SQ. I also loved it because it gave me my whole boot still to use. I made it out of 52mm birch ply (3 X 18mm) and housed the FI IB3 12" infinite baffle subs (RRP £600) in my own custom colours of red and carbon.
Now for amps I'm using the Helix p6 (RRP £900) which is a 6 channel amp with a build in DSP for my front end then a Zapco Monoblock 1350RMS (RRP £400) for the subs into 1ohm. For this final install I wanted to go SQL (sound quality loud) leaning more towards SQ. So I got SQ drivers that could also play to a reasonable volume as well.
Audio install alone and have my tunes done by Lee from Platinum in Car in Coventry my install has cost me around £4K with install materials and tunes ect ect. Now moving onto the rest of the vehicle I have done that many things to it I'm just going to do a list of all my mods:
- Candy Red alloys with Pirelli low profile tyres
- Dropped 30mm on v maxx springs
- Vented and grooved discs
- Red callipers with decals
- Tinted front and rear lights
- Upgraded xenon headlights
- Candy red hydro dipped arches (venom fangs)
- Red tape strips across mirrors, skirts, front grill and rear bumper
- Tinted sunstrip
- Maxton Designs front splitter with struts, Maxton designs rear diffuser and Maxton Designs rear corner splitters all In gloss black.
- Amazon side skirt trims with RCZ logo.
- Front bumper smoothed out the Euro look.
- Headlight eyebrows in pearl black to match paintwork.
- Private tinted number plate
- Led bulbs all round.
- Remapped
- EGR blanked
- DPF removed
- No backbox
- Quad 4inch exhausts
- K&N cold air induction kit.
- 163hp 360nm standard
- Now running 210bhp 440nm. Now onto the Interior…
- Upgraded steering wheel
- Red rings round all dials
- Pearl black handles and centre dash to match car colour
- RCZ R gear knob • RCZ GT car mats in matching red
- Greddy boost gauge moulded into centre dash
- Moulded a-pillars • Footwell kicks
- IB boot.
- RCZ badges from outside into inside.
- RCZ logo door lights
- LEDs throughout
There are probably more mods that I might have missed. I'm into my car detailing also and I use a das V6 and Menzerna polishes to look after the paintwork and EZ Car Care products to clean her. I have only had one problem with the car, which was when I got the car remapped it caused the vacuum pump which is moulded into the diesel pump to fail. This then scrapped all 4 of my injectors. Annoying being moulded into a fuel pump, I had to replace the whole pump and all 4 injectors.
Thankfully being a mechanic I was able to fit it all myself and parts cost 2k however silver lining is as the car does much better on fuel now! Apart from that she has been great and now just over 50K miles.
At a guess I would say about 6k spent on the outside and inside of the car so totalling around 10k I have spent on the car to make it how I want. What I love about the car is the attention it gets. Wherever I go everyone stares at it and it stands out from the crowd.
Most people say “is that an Audi TT?”. I say no it's better than that lol! Modification wise I think I'm done on the car now as sometimes you can start making it look tacky if you keep going. My dream is to be able to have her featured in an indoor show to really show her off.
So that's my aim for the next shows that come up. I'm currently admin on a Facebook group called Modified RCZ Owners Group. It's a great group, full of all different walks of life who all have the love for the RCZ, so if you have one feel free to join.
I have some nice photos from my most recent photoshoot done by Ninety2 Automotive which is owned by Mel, she is an amazing photographer and really knows how to show off your car. She does private car shoots and group shoots for clubs so go check out her work on all social media platforms.
Thankyou for taking your time in reading the short story of my life with my car. If you would like any help or advice or tips on anything I have done to my car feel free to message me on Instagram @willRCZ or my Facebook: William Shand. Thanks again
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