Goodbye, Old Paint
This past weekend, we took my old '90 VW Corrado over to my little brother's house for the last time. Heck, the damn thing has just been sitting out in front of the house all summer and kiwi59 had forbidden me to drive it anyway since it spits out gas back by the gas pump at an alarming rate. (See? He really DOES care for me!!) Since i quit working on the project in Decatur last November and started hitting the road on the "Project From Hell", it's been just sitting anyway. i was GOING to try and sell it this summer when if wrapped up the PFH, but Greg said that if we fixed it up a bit more, we could get more. But with other side projects and everything, i just haven't had the time. It was finally decided to just let him have it and whatever he gets over a set amount he can have. Heck, he can use the money anyway.
But it was time for it to go...heck, it was LONG past time for it to go.
i bought the car on 12 SEP 1989. It was a Sunday. i was living in Los Angeles where i was assigned as a recruiter, a job i wouldn't wish upon...well, not upon anyone i cared for. i would, however, wish it upon those i hated. Yes, i have that big a capacity to hate. Fortunately, i had this sunny Sunday free and instead of my usual schedule of getting all 6 or 7 pounds of the Sunday LA Times, a giant beer stein of coffee and my radio, going out to the pool and veging in the shade for 3 or 4 hours reading and listening to "Flashback Weekend" on "the world famous KROQ", i had to take a co-worker down to catch an early flight out of LAX. On the way back, i didn't have much to do and it was earlier than i thought and i didn't have to be at Erika's house for several hours, so i decided to drive by the VW dealer down the road from where i lived to see if the new Corrado had shown up. i'd been reading about this car in Car&Driver for over a year and had become obsessed. My '82 GTI was feeling old, but i had no intention of getting rid of that car that i loved. Still, i wanted to see this new sexy machine in the flesh.
"OMG...There it IS!!!!!"
i pulled up to the curb in front of the dealer. i went up and cupped my hands on the window so i could see inside. mmmmm...pretty....
"Want to sit in it? We just got them in...one of the first in the country."
Huh? He startled me. i thought that car dealers where supposed to be closed on Sundays. i guess that didn't apply here. The salesman got the keys and we slid in. For his part, he immediately slid into his sales pitch. He tried to tell me about the car's features, but it soon became obvious that i knew way more about this car than he could ever hope or care to. While i was fiddling with it, he went inside to look at some literature to try and come up with something to stump me with.
"Know what the 'G60' stands for?"
"Yeah, the supercharger is in the shape of a 'G' and the cooling fins are 60 millimeters apart."
OK, that shut him up. He just settled into standard salesslimespeak that just fell on my ears like a dull hum. He didn't need to sell me. i had already done that. We took it out for a spin around the area. It felt good. Out on the freeway. We were going about 70. A touch more pressure on the accellerator and suddenly we were pushing 90. WHOA!!!! Damn, this is nice. By now, common sense had gone out the sunroof and flipped over the spoiler that automatically deployed at 100KPH (62 MPH, though they lowered that number to 45 so that American boulevardieres could look cool while they cruised down the street). Work was hell...pure hell. i was working 6 days a week, 14 hours a day. i deserved this. The fact that i couldn't really afford it was something that i would have to deal with later.
Three agonizing hours later, it was mine. Well, it was kinda mine. i had a three-year lease on it, my trusty Manfred had been taken away from my like a crying infant ripped from it's mother's arms, and i was sitting in that driver's seat. Hell, it was so new that they hadn't even had time to install the stereo. But it was mine. And from that first agonizing SCRRRRRUUNNNCCHHH of the chin spoiler on the dip as i drove it off the lot, i knew:
i had made the biggest mistake of my life.
Thus began my 17 year love/hate relationship with Klaus. Things started breaking right from the start. You know what they say about not buying the first year's edition...well, that was never more true. Hell, even the pully spindle on the alternator snapped in half (something unheard of!) about 15 days after the warranty ran out. The 90-day warranty. The NINETY-FUCKING-DAY warranty!! They made me a deal to fix it, but it wasn't like i had a choice. Other goofy things too...electrical things, this and that, big and small...over the next decade and a half. The weirdest thing is that there was some anomoly in the windshield and it would never properly clean the center of my driving vision about the size of a softball or large grapefruit. i realized how bad it was when i moved from sunny southern California to stormy Germany.
At the foot of the Golden Gate, 1991. The first time i had been to SF. i was shipping the car out of Oakland to send it back to Germany. i met a drunken sailor at the Lone Star. i was amazed that i was in a gay bar that a)wasn't full of fem's and b) that they were playing Aerosmith. The drunken sailor took me to his van parked around the corner. Awhile later i walked back into the Lone Star for another beer. my butt hurt, but i was happy. Ah, to be (somewhat) young and näive.
On the outskirts of Lamprechtshausen, Austria, my namesake town.
Now you know my last name. i could hardly see out the window because of the anomoly.
At the Cadillac Ranch outside Amarillo, Texas.
Ten old Caddys buried up to the cowl at the same angle as the Great Pyramids. Fun.
Camping in the Black Forest of Germany with my ex, Egon. A fun trip on the banks of the Titisee. (Yes, it's actually called that). Quite coincidentally, i dried off after my shower this morning with the monogrammed towel that i liberated from the fancy sauna at the spa there.
i owe him an email. The ex, not the spa.
"...home, home again...i like to be here when i can..."
After going around the world and back, Klaus and i returned to the US on MON 1 APR 2001. my folks took me to Pontoon Beach, Illinois, to pick it up on WED 3 APR. At about 5 o'clock that afternoon, i pulled into the parking lot of JJ's Clubhouse, sat down at the far end of the bar, ordered a Bud Light and, in my shyness, didn't say a word other than an occassional yes or no to Zelda's questions (he was filling in for Art that day). The rest is history.
The Corrado lasted through college, though things kept going wrong. The odometer gave out at about 116,000, but the speedometer still worked, so i saw no sense in fixing that. i'm going to guess that it's got a good 150+ by now. i managed to get matching tags for the wooferWagens...ain't it cute how Missouri lets you use apostrophes?
With me being on the road all the time now, i don't need two cars. Hell, i barely need one. On the weekends, we'll go places together, so we'll take the Mercedes.
Time to go. i'll miss you, you piece of shit. Goodbye.