I've always thought that Sciroccos were neat cars. I especially remember that in high school my electronics class teacher (also the school network admin) drove a black 16v scirocco, which made him seem cooler than he already was. I've always been a big fan of the GTi. Ever since I was 15 I wanted a 16v GTi, so I never really focused too much on the Scirocco. I thought it was a neat looking sports car, but it seemed out of reach compared to the souped up Golf.
When I was looking to sell my 1968 Beetle in 2003 Kellie had mentioned that there was a guy at work selling his Scirocco on the bulletin board at work but for whatever reason we decided it wasn't the way to go. (I think the price was more than I was going to get for the beetle I was already set on the Jetta) So it faded from memory for several months. Then, one day Kellie mentioned that the Scirocco was still up for sale and that he wanted $1500 for it. Having just about finished fixing up the Jetta I didn't have any extra money for vehicles, so yet again we had to pass. Early August 2004, kellie forwards me an email with photos of a black 16v scirocco.
I call her up and she mentions having talked to it's owner who still had it in his possession. He had purchased a new Jetta and loved the car but didn't have the resouces to get it back into shape, and couldn't seem to sell it. It currently didn't run and the windows didn't work and it had been sitting for about a year. I told her "well... offer him $400 for it then" and He came back with "make it $500 and I'll throw in a full size spare wheel and tire" and we agreed to go look it over several days later (and buy it, hehe)
That day at work I charged up a spare battery I had in my bay and packed up the tools that would be required to install it. We follow the Mark (the scirocco's owner) out to his place another 40min farther than the 40min we were already away from home. Pulling into the drive I spot the car sitting behind his house, and notice it has no flat tires. Bonus. We get out and proceed to give the car a good walk-around and check it out. It looked pretty straight and such, Mark mentioned that he swapped the wheels with some from a Jetta he used to have and gave us some of the history on the car and pulled out the records he had for it. Flipping through them it was obvious that he had taken care of the vehcile while it was in his possession. I noticed the odometer read 99k miles, interior was pretty much all there, and that the wear on the driver's seat bolster wasn't too bad.
I added some fuel treatment to the gas tank and hooked up the freshly charged battery. The car started in about 30 or 40 seconds of cranking and had a smooth idle. We let it run for about an hour while we talked and I made sure that the radiator fans and thermostat were all working. The exhaust axle pipe was broken off right before the muffler. Needless to say, it was pretty loud. Kellie wrote him a check and we went inside and talked for about another hour or so, and decided it was about time to head home. I removed the left window switch and messed with it until the window started to work again. It needed to work in order to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.
After a quick spin around the block to ensure everything was in order, and a quick stop at the gas station for some fuel and a stop at ruby tuesdays for dinner we were homeward bound, her in the Jetta, and myself in the Scirocco. We also stopped at wal-mart for some wiper blades as it was raining quite a bit at first, and grabbed some window wipes to take care of the "sitting around" grime. After about an hour and ten minutes and only one traffic jam due to a fender bender we pulled into our driveway around 11:30pm. I had a pretty hard time falling asleep. The next morning I woke up 10 minutes early and whispered over to Kellie: "psssst, hey!" "someone put a scirocco in my driveway!" and washed it up before I went to work.
So, it wasn't a GTi. It was better! It was a purpose built volkswagen sports car. It was 8 years of waiting and planning and thinking of GTi Golfs, and 16V Rabbits. I had even purchased and pulled the engine out of an '88 GTi 16v before I moved to TN so I could build a 16v rabbit. But now, in my garage; it runs (mostly,) drives (sort-of,) and... it's dead sexy! (especially at 7,000 rpm!) Hoo-rah.