The saga of my 1990 Volkswagen Corrado (now SOLD)

or rather, what's left of my Corrado...

here were the vitals:

- 1990 Volkswagen Corrado G-60
- 186,000 miles
- Tornado red
- regular oil changes with Castrol synthetic every 3,500 miles
- bad 5th gear synchro
- no heater core
- 3rd owner, purchased at ~ 92,000 miles
- except for *all* of the glass and the aforementioned two problems, this vehicle was completely intact
-never been involved in a traffic accident

I purchased this Corrado in 1996, from a fellow in Raleigh; the car was originally from Atlanta, and had never spent any time up north. This was far and away one of my favorite vehicles, and but for the disaster which befell it in 2004 I would still be driving her. I still have a 1983 Jeep CJ-5 as my daily driver, and the majority of this Corrado's miles were highway miles- I took her across the country twice and down through Florida many times.

I bought the car when I lived in Pamlico County, North Carolina, and I walked to work everyday; the Jeep I used to travel as far as New Bern, and the Corrado to everywhere else. I went back to graduate school in the Triangle in 1999, and rarely used the VW except weekend trips up to the mountains or out to the beach, and then I took a job here in Edenton in 2002.

The heater core blew up on my way to a wedding (no, no, not mine) in August of 2003; I was able to limp to the church and patch it up from some instructions I found on the web, and the fix worked so well I never bothered to truly correct the problem. Then in October of 2003 my Fifth Gear Synchro went out, and the local mechanic I took the car to turned out to be a real yahoo who didn't know what he was doing, and the car stayed on his lot 'way longer than she should have.

One morning quite awhile after I took her to the mechanic's shop, I received a phone call from the local police department, stating that my car had been involved in an incident and that I needed to come to the shop. When I got down there, I could not believe what I saw; a couple of kids had taken a hammer, and had broken out *every* single piece of glass- headlights, windows, mirrors- except for the driver's side door window and side window, and also got hold of a large tree limb and banged around the car with the wood. I foolishly did not have collision insurance on this vehicle, as I didn't drive it enough for me to be concerned about anything other than some other driver. The estimates for the glass replacement alone came in at over $7,000. As many of you seem to be wondering, in North Carolina juveniles can only be held responsible for up to $500 in damages, and these kids' parents are crack-heads, so there was absolutely nothing to be gained by suing them except more time and energy wasted.

So there I was, a year and a half later, and I certainly looked at other corrados while I hung on to this one for parts. However, the reality is that the nearest VW dealership is over an hour and a half away, and apparently there are no mechanics in Northeastern North Carolina that can work on a volkswagen. Last month I finally broke down and bought another (non-volkswagen) car, and it broke my heart to see my Corrado wasting away in my yard. This was an amazing car, and I knew that I could get more money if I did part her out but I simply couldn't bring myself to dissect this vehicle and sell her off piece by piece. Thus, the first person that showed up with a grand and a truck would get to go off with her.

These pictures hardly do her justice, of course, but the gist of the engine is that there were no mods (with the exception of the bypassed heater-core). This is the original supercharger, and with 186,000 miles on it I suspect that is close to some sort of record, but allow me to reiterate that this car was never abused by any of her owners, and that there was nothing wrong with the supercharger when I put the corrado into the shop. I did change the lift speed to 58 mph, and I changed the interior light to stay on a little longer after the door shut, and the guy I bought the car from had just replaced the ignition switch so there are two different keys to the car. But the windows all worked perfectly, the sunroof had no mechanical problems (I kept the tracks well-lubricated, however the material on the ceiling was beginning to peel off so I had to spray some glue up there), the seatbelt tracks were replaced a few years ago, the current rims are MSW's (well, 3 MSW's and one Borbet which looks the same), the original rims are sitting in my storage shed and as I recall only one of 'em holds any air, all 3 of her owners have been non-smokers and the seats have some cracking in the front but the upholstery is in great shape, and the radio is the standard VW issue- in short, I should have replaced it years ago.

and so that's it. I know in these pictures it kind of looks like that sawgrass was growing into the car, but I promise she was resting comfortably under two tarps. A guy in med school showed up one afternoon to take a look after driving 5 hours from DC, we talked for awhile, and then one night later that week he returned with his girlfriend and actually drove the car off! And I've never seen her again....