Several months ago I came across a forum called Trunk Society that is solely dedicated to Volkswagen models with trunks. In their words, “The Trunk Society is an owners club for VW sedans like the Jetta, Vento, Bora, Passat, Phaeton, Derby and Polo sedan.”

I started posting on the forum a bit and introduced myself to the members there. The forum was created by someone in Europe so there aren’t a lot of US members on the board. Several of the European members were excited to learn more about my Jetta since it came with different equipment than their models. I started talking to one member on a more regular basis and actually sent several emails back and forth. His username is Jettameister (real name Dimitri) and he owns both a Mk2 Jetta and a Mk3 Vento. The best part about all this is that Dimitri’s Vento is black…meaning we could swap parts and not have to worry about painting. But why would he want stock US parts on his car? Because they don’t have them in Europe! It seems strange to us here in the US, where everybody is crazy for Euro parts. But over in Belgium, where Dimitri lives, they see the stock Euro parts everyday and would rather have rare US parts.

This situation works out for both of us. We have both done some research on shipping costs for bumpers and are expecting to be swapping our fronts sometime soon. If all goes well with the first shipment we are going to look at shipping a few other parts. This is really exciting for me because authentic Vento bumpers are really hard to come by over here. GTI fronts are a dime a dozen, but the Ventos are much harder to get.

I’m getting really excited about sourcing this bumper. I can’t wait to get the shipping process underway.