VW Cruise in Louisville

Well, the beast made it out for the cruise. It received a lot of attention. Several of the guys there couldn't believe it was "that clean". By that, they mean it looks very original and has most of the interior intact and in great shape. It made me feel pretty good, especially after all of the work I have done. There were some pretty cool cars out there too. The cruise turned into a race, which Lori and I gracefully bailed out of. Good thing that I wasn't in this while I was younger and had the original GTI. There would have been no "bailing out" back then. Since I really haven't had this car much over 70mph, I wasn't about to experiment with it while Lori was in the car with me.

The turnout was great and it was neat to meet some other folks that are enthusiastic about their cars. Every stop light we hit turned into a chorus of gasoline and tire burning. It was pretty funny. It would go from several pitches of "wweeeeee, wweeeeeee, wweeeeeeee" to "SCREEEEECCCHHHHHHH!!!!" All of the motors sounded different, but rubber on the road still always sounds like rubber on the road. Here are some pics. You'll see one pic of everyone huddled around, admiring the beast.

Time for driving

Well, aside from needing a fuel pump, I'm driving this beast! There is a big VW rally this weekend that the GTI is going to put in an appearance. Check out where it is now....

A day in the life of Jeff

I have to share a round of emails I exchanged with a friend of mine to tell the story of driving in the GTI to work this week.

So...drove the gti in to work today for the first time. Pretty cool. We (boss and I with some clients) have a lunch meeting, which my boss always drives when we have meetings. I figured I wouldn't need the trailblazer, so I'd drive the GTI. He had to drop his BMW off to have some body work done, so we are rolling in the gti with no back seat, no A/C, no glove compartment, no radio and a windshield that has a crack over 75% of it. Who is feeling like a chump now?

Dude...It gets better. One of the guys there needed a ride back to his office. I still have the back seat of the GTI sitting in my basement. All of the carpet was out of the back seat. He had to lay across the bare metal and the gas tank. The rear view mirror fell off in my lap as he climbed in. Apparently, the glue was not a big fan of the warmer temps. He had to lie down in the back for the 5 minute ride. You couldn't script anything this ridiculous. Since it is lowered, it feels like we are rolling on the Flintstone "stone wheels" to begin with. And the guy that jumped in the back (notice no use of the word seat in this sentence) was no small dude. We were rollin low now! No A/C in the car and because I haven't replaced the fuel pump yet, I had to crank it for a good 20-30 seconds before it started up. Lovely day.....

And when I finally got into Shelbyville, the clutch cable snapped. I had to pop the hood, yank the cable so that the clutch was engaged and start the beast in first gear. It looked like it was having a seizure trying to get started in gear. I was able to rev match it to get it into third gear and drove it the last mile home in third gear only. I called a friend who got the garage door open for me and I pulled into the garage at about 15 mph. Needless to say, he has never seen anything like it. Our driveway has a 90 degree turn at the bottom of it to get into the garage. It is not often you can say you were squealing the tires in your own driveway and garage. I got her stopped about 2 feet from my workbench and rear garage wall. Not bad... I picked up a used clutch cable for $5 and already replaced it. It took me about 25 minutes and it is now running great again.

Licensed and Registered

Well, the GTI is on the road, and legally this time. I'll try to get some pictures on Sunday. I plan on driving this beast to work on Monday. That should raise some eyebrows at work.