My choice of the greatest car of all time has been ridiculed by everyone else in the office. Okay, so the 205 GTi may not have changed the world in the same way as the Beetle, or be a bedroom pin-up like the McLaren, but in its own way the 205 was and still is special. It's still the benchmark for hot hatches, even though it's over 20 years old. Its combination of a lightweight body, nimble chassis, strong engines and amazing steering feedback still make the GTi the one to measure up to.

It was the Boxster of its day - a great car whose image was stained by the people who often bought them. Flash city types were seen bumbling around urban roads in their 205 GTi, but when they finally decided to stretch its capabilities out on the country roads, they'd often find themselves flying backwards through a hedge. Oh yes, the 205 GTi can bite. Many a not-so-confident driver bottled it mid-corner in the 205 and lifted off the throttle. That would provoke the tail of the car to come around in a nasty moment of terminal oversteer.

For the last couple of years I hankered after owning a 205 GTi. I've seen so many pictures of people's prides and joys on the internet and heard many stories from other motoring journalists on the merits of the French flyer that I just couldn't resist. I caught the eBay bug from former 4Car editor Richard Bremner, wasting many a lunch hour looking at bodykitted monstrosities and stripped-out rally slags.

Then, last December, I was flipping through Autotrader as I did most mornings and found one. It was perfect - my ideal colour (graphite grey), my ideal price (cheap as chips) and it was local to me. A quick phone call later and a meeting was arranged in a petrol station on the edge of town that afternoon. Against all the advice I've heard over the years about never buying in a neutral location, or in the dark, I'd struck the deal. I did actually drive the car before I bought it, and it seemed good to me, all the pedals did what they should do and the body creaked just as it should.

£350 in cold hard cash isn't a bad deal really, and the guy did deliver it to my house. What I got for my money was an 87,000-mile 1.6 GTi, although the engine kicks out so much smoke you'd think it had driven to Mars and back. The interior I had originally thought was in pristine condition ended up a dog hair-strewn, oil-stained nightmare. Oh, and the sunroof leaks...

But, and this is a big but, it's got a straight body - this beauty's never been spun off into the greenery (okay, it may have been, but it plainly didn't hit anything in the process). A 205 with all original panels and no rippling in the boot floor is worth its salt - well, it is to me anyway.

I still haven't found the time to fix the 205 up (I blame the weather; summer didn't really happen), which also means I haven't really driven it yet. But when I do, I know my 205 will reward every ounce of my faith in it.