Seeing a Malaga 2002 brings back fond memories. I had a 2004 in Malaga, until it was totaled by being rear-ended at a traffic light in Brooklyn by a Lincoln Town Car (NYC Black Car). Lost my fully restored 1972 Bavaria in the same year, stolen from the sidewalk in front of my house. Those two events really soured me on living in Brooklyn.
Your dad is very lucky to get a 2002 as clean as that. They are starting to really go up in value, so it's getting really hard to think about modding them. On the one hand they really do respond well to some basic tweaks, on the other, you want to preserve the value. There was a time when originality didn't matter on 2002s, it was just a fun, somewhat inexpensive car. Unfortunately those days are numbered. Perhaps the solution is to keep all the mods reversible, and hang on to all the original parts.
These days, I have trouble living with a car without air-conditioning, and we certainly know that even though few 02's came with it, and it could easily be added aftermarket, (all 2002 air systems were dealer installed!) The problem was that the cooling system was barely up to the extra load of running A/C, and it sucked valuable HP...of which the capable 02 needed every bit, (given how good the suspension was).
