Scirocco Saga Conclusion...

Sadly, we have reached the third and final installment of the Scirocco Saga.

To review:

This is a slightly accurate replica of the Scirocco Decadence drove, the main
difference being that this car has no apparent attitude.

Not to be confused with this, a Delorean.

Both cars have been a part of adventures, but only one can be called Scirocco.

During the time between the events reported in part deux and this latest installment, young Decadence graduated high school and left for college a few hours away from home. The Scirocco did not join Decadence at college because her parents "did not trust the car to go long distances." Funny. It seemed to Decadence that the car couldn't handle short distances. Long distances were usually successful ventures.

Decadence missed her poor, lonely Scirocco. She longed to drive her beloved death trap more and more everyday. She imagined that the car waited in anticipation at home for her, pining for the next adventure...

With this look on its matte-finished face

While home for breaks from school, the Scirocco would sputter to life after the long rests and the two would ride all over town, visiting friends who remained in Athens. Most excursions were successful.

On numerous occasions, Decadence and the Scirocco cruised the classic city in style (using the term loosely) and the memories of car's past misdeeds faded...

These memories faded to the extent that when presented with the idea of going to a concert at the Georgia Theater with some of her friends over her spring break trip home, she didn't think twice about joining the crew. The plan was to drive downtown, park the Scirocco in the well-lit parking lot, deemed "old faithful," join the friends downtown, attend aforementioned concert, then drive home.

As you might have guessed, the events of the night did not unfold as planned.

First a review of road conditions in Athens at this time, as it is pertinent to the story.

This was a time of development and commercial expansion in Athens, not a time of renovation or repair of existing structures and roadways. Perhaps the most glaring example of this was East Campus Road. A long, winding road that carried one from Lumpkin Street through downtown Athens. This road took the driver down through a less travelled part of campus and most importantly, along the side and base of Sanford Stadium hence making it a Decadence favorite.

Sanford Stadium-Go Dawgs

By day one could see the countless potholes, cracks, missing pavement, patches, and sinkhole sized gouges that had been carved out of the road from years of vehicle traffic and perhaps movement of the tectonic plates. (Sudden and unexpected movement of tectonic plates would be the only excuse for the condition of the road.) While driving on this road in the daylight, the driver could attempt to dodge the various obstacles-key word attempt-but at night it was a losing game of driving a tank through a mine field.

East Campus Road-ish road conditions by day:

Although the real East Campus Road was much more of a mess and was never marked with cones
or attended to by orange jumpsuit clad repairmen. 

This was not a rare occurrence for the brave souls who chose to navigate East Campus Road...

Now that the road conditions involved have been reviewed, the details of the episode in question can be revealed.

The night began as Decadence left her parent's house, located about 15 minutes away from downtown Athens. Excited to see her friends, Decadence strained to hear the music of the radio over the sputtering and roaring of the engine as she travelled down the dark roads of Oconee and Clarke counties. As she reached the Clarke county line, road conditions worsened and Decadence noticed that her car's handling too had worsened. 

It was normal for her to keep a vice-inspired grip on the wheel to keep the car from veering off the road or into oncoming traffic, but this time something seemed more off than usual. The car seemed to pull in multiple directions at once and although Decadence travelled at a low speed (about 40 in a 45), the car shook much more violently than was typical.

Decadence slowed her speed more for she was in no hurry. 35 in a 45 zone. 

Continued violent shaking. 

Think old fashioned vibrating belt machine shaking

Decadence turned onto East Campus Road just as she slowed to 30 miles per hour. 

Utter mine field.

If the car was displaying severe problems before this, they paled in comparison to what happened next.

Decadence had to lean forward and use her forearms in the grip she held on the steering wheel as it turned and tugged in any way possible. Decadence turned the radio off-an undeniable sign of vehicular seriousness. 

Decadence slowed to 25 as she talked sweet nothings into the Scirocco's dashboard. In between hitting sinkholes that jarred her entire body, she even patted the dashboard gently, promising "You will never have to drive me around again if you just get me to the parking lot. You can retire forever, just please don't kill me."

Strange noises emerged from the car. Metal scraping, strange creaking, and of course the sound of everything in the car soaring then subsequently landing somewhere new as she unsuccessfully avoided sinkholes. Decadence feared the wheel would fall off the car again. She slowed to 20.

If you are unfamiliar with the "Old Faithful" reference-
this is it, along with a herd of Bison.

Without a cell phone, she would be unable to call anyone if she had to abandon the car. It was pitch black dark and she was still over a mile away from downtown. She knew she had to risk driving as far as she could. "I'm just going to get you to a nice, safe parking place at the 'old faithful' parking lot where no one will bother you." She whispered to the car, patting the dashboard yet again.

Painfully and at a speed of 15 miles per hour, the Scirocco finished the intended journey. As promised, Decadence parked the car in a well lit, but slightly hidden parking spot. She bid the Scirocco farewell, knowing that there was no way this car would successfully be driven further.

Decadence made the trek across downtown to meet her friends. While enjoying the company of her best friends, Decadence couldn't shake the feeling that her Scirocco Saga might have seen its final adventure. Decadence did not return to the car that night. Decadence instead stayed with her friend on campus and decided that she would call her parents in the morning and relay the story.

Next morning: Decadence calls home. Parents are fuming. 

Fuming. 

Decadence was supposed to call last night and tell them she would not come home-it was ALL they asked. (eh hem. side note-Decadence's parents were also cell phoneless and every night before bed, they would unplug the phone by their bed so it would not wake them in the night)

"I'm sorry" Decadence said, "but I absolutely could NOT drive the car. I still can't. It is REALLY messed up this time." 

"Oh that is NONSENSE!" was the reply.

"I really need y'all to come get me, there is no way I am driving the car."

Even madder. "Oh this is just RIDICULOUS! FINE, we will come pick you up and your dad will drive the car home."

Decadence was waiting with her friend on the curb when they drove up, still fuming.

Together the three drove to what Decadence had promised the Scirocco would be its final resting place while Decadence heard all about how angry her parents were.

Father Brown retrieved the car key from Decadence and enterd the car. The Scirocco burst to life, but Decadence could hear anger and unrest in the sounds...

Mama Brown and Decadence decided that they would lead the way home while Father Brown followed in the Scirocco. Mama Brown turned left out of the parking lot with no traffic in sight. Father Brown echoed this maneuver. After this and within seconds, the two women lost sight of Father Brown and the Scirocco. 

"Mmm, he'll catch up at the light." Mama Brown said hopefully. Decadence remained silent for she had given them both fair warning.

At the first red light, no sign of the duo. 

Second light, no sighting. 

Mama Brown pulled over on the side of the road. "Where is that man?" she asked.

Decadence was silent.

Mama Brown, driving 1996 (?) Mercury Grand Marquis, pulled a 15 point turn to head back in the opposite direction. They passed the second light, then the first with no sign of the Scirocco. They did not find Father Brown and the Scirocco until they reached the parking lot next to the original parking lot, where the car was parked and Father Brown was leaning against the car.

As the ladies drove up with the window down, Father Brown exclaimed "I'm not driving this car another  FOOT!! This car is about to fall apart!"

"I told you! What did you think? I made it up?!" Decadence responded, exasperated. 

"Well, I guess we'll call Darcy on Monday and have him tow it over to the shop, see what's wrong with it" was the ever-famous resolution.

Although-this time there would be no magical Darcy repairs. The frame of the car had cracked in half. The car could not even be towed, a platform truck had to come scrape the Scirocco's remains off of the pavement.

Where is the Scirocco now? Who knows. 

Stacked in this stack of cars?

Sold for parts? Smashed to bits?

Decadence likes to imagine that the man pictured below salvaged the unbroken part of the frame and has since earned a small fortune for himself using the legendary Scirocco as a rickshaw. 

In order to buy into this fantasy that immortalizes the Scirocco, you must look past the fact that this rickshaw is not actually made from a Scirocco frame. Let's say this is his other rickshaw.

Cars a la Decadence: Part Deux

Perhaps the appropriate attitude to have when driving or riding in the Scirocco

When we last left off, Decadence's 1984 Volkswagen Scirocco was shipped off to the family car repairman, Darcy, with a broken axle and a dangling front wheel.

Some time later the axle was ordered, installed and working properly. Decadence once again had her roaring, tape-playerless, air-conditionless, shaking, ride of doom back. (For a full description of this temperamental piece of metal on wheels, see the previous post.)  It was a bittersweet reunion. The two exchanged sideways glances before  they made the ride home together. The honeymoon period would not last long.


One bright, sunny Saturday afternoon a short time later, Decadence and her mother took off to town for a trip to who knows where in a quickly developing part of Oconee County (just outside of Athens, GA).


~~It should be said before this story continues, that whenever Decadence's 5'1" tall mother becomes suddenly nervous while riding in the passenger seat of a car (any car) she grips the passenger door or door handle,  whichever her right hand reaches first, while her left arm flails out in front of her, grasping for the dashboard which is usually out of her reach (sorry, Moms). Once her hands are in place, her body becomes completely rigid and unmoving. On occasion, if the situation worsens, she will repeat: "Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!" until the crisis is averted. This display never seems to quell her anxiety, perhaps it is just something for her to do while the driver remedies the situation. Having been the driver when she reacts this way, Decadence can tell you, it only makes things worse. Seeing Mama Brown performing this display only confirms the level severity of the situation and panic is usually close behind.

Close example, if Mama Brown was a male ginger and had switched to the driver seat at the last second.

But as this blog so often does, Decadence digresses. Off to run errands they went, taking the VW for a spin with them. It seemed that everyone was out that morning enjoying the beautiful day and weekend. All seemed right with the world. That is, until the trio (death-trap, eh-hem, character-filled Scirocco included in this count) drove over the Eppes Bridge Parkway overpass crossing Loop 10. Always a town that screams great planning-this particular overpass had a red light positioned halfway down the descending part of the overpass. Intersecting Eppes Bridge Parkway at this busy light was the on and off ramp for the aforementioned Loop 10 (A pseudo-highway that, you guessed it, makes a loop around Athens).


As luck would have it this fine morning, the light for their stream of traffic was red. Double lanes of traffic came pouring off Loop 10 and onto Eppes Bridge in both directions, as per usual. Always making attempts to be the responsible driver, Decadence pushed the the brake pedal with one foot as she pushed the clutch with the other (manual transmission if you haven't reviewed the car's description).
Not feeling the car slow, Decadence pushed the brakes harder so as not to hit the line of cars in front of her. No change. The lane to the left was clear, so Decadence merged into that lane as she approached the red light. Pushing the brake pedal to the floor with all of her weight brought no change.


Cue Mama Brown's reaction to vehicular crisis.


Seeing the Mama Brown brace-stance, Decadence knew she had to act quick. The light appeared to have no intentions of changing and the traffic off-loading from "The Loop" was not slowing. Decadence did the only thing she could think of...she hit the gas with everything she had.

Okay, so obviously not. Decadence would not have lived through that.


Instead, left with no other option aside from Thelma and Louise-ing it through the intersection, Decadence pulled the emergency brake with one hand at first and then both in order to stop the car in time. The car screeched at deafening decibels and clouds of smoke billowed from the tires, but the car stopped. The car stopped directly behind the white line in fact.


Lucky for Decadence, there was a car repair place just up the next hill in the same direction Mother and Decadence were already headed...the car was yet again admitted for some involuntary inpatient rehabilitation.


A mini-photo montage of the range of emotions this car evoked in Decadence:

Functional panic

I just can't face it anymore panic

While we are on the subject of intersection related Scirocco melt-downs:

One forgotten, but important detail to mention about the Scirocco is that the gas gauge was not accurate. The tank would read full one minute, halfway full the next, and 3 minutes later the car might shut down unexpectedly of an empty tank. 

Seriously. 

The first time this happened, Decadence just happened to be on her way to the gas station. She was hoping to give her business to the gas station just on the other side of a busy intersection from where the car shut off. Once again, the light was red and there was a busy flow of traffic crossing the intersection, preventing Decadence from coasting through said intersection (although in reality, she never would have made it to that gas station even if the light had been green). Instead she merged the dead car into the right hand turn lane where she could-hopefully-coast along in the turn lane in front of a busy shopping center and down the only sloping hill in the area, leading down to a gas station. 

Because the car shut down well before it even reached the initial intersection, the act of merging into the right turn lane took most of the car's momentum. The car slowed considerably more after Decadence made the right turn. The speedometer of the car did not even register a numerical value for the speed of the car at this point. The car crawled. Someone walking next to the car with crutches could have beat the car to the intended gas station. 

Decadence was reduced to "riding" along in the turn lane, waving people away from attempting to hit her while she rocked back and forth in the driver's seat repeatedly and with great vigor, hoping that this would propel the car forward until it reached the gas station. This went on for several minutes, but just when she thought she would have to abandon the car in the turn lane or physically push the car forward, the car reached the ever-so-slight downhill slope that lead to the gas station. Decadence steered the car to the only available pump and the rest of the day proceeded as normal.

This was the first, but not the last time the car would play this trick. Decadence was much closer to the gas station the next time it happened…

To be continued...again...

Decadence and her Cars

Has your front axle ever broken while you were driving, causing your wheel to fall off of your car?

Have your brakes ever gone out while driving down a hill and into an intersection with a red light and traffic moving rapidly through the intersection, while your mother sat in the passenger seat?

Has the frame of your car ever broken in half while you drove down the road?

Well, then to you I must say: You have not LIVED.



Decadence hears people claim "I'm going to drive this car into the ground." How often does one claiming this actually drive the car into the ground? You may think that because Decadence is all about finery to the max, that she would use, abuse, and trade in her cars for the next best thing--but you would be wrong. In this case, Decadence (excluding her current ride, Judyth) starts with shit-tastic cars, then uses and abuses them until they fall to pieces. In fact, the claim that one will drive a car into the ground reminds Decadence of the car she actually drove into the ground, on two separate occasions.

An entire blog could be dedicated to this topic, but alas, brevity will be attempted and this will hopefully be contained within two posts. Buckle up.

Part I

A bit of background.
Decadence at 16; just a glimpse of the madness to come was visible in her eyes. With a birthday that fell over the Christmas break, she was ecstatic to arrive on the first day of the new year in style. This style, as fate would have it, was a white 1984 Volkswagen Scirocco, Wolfgang Edition (what what) manual transmission, with 230,000 miles on it.

This car had no tape player because years earlier, in an attempt to "jump" the car back to life, Decadence's father had blown it out by crossing the cables. The car had amazing heat, all year long (super convenient for living in Georgia). When the air conditioning was turned on, it blew hot air, leaves, dirt, and sand onto the driver and unsuspecting passenger. It had manual windows and locks. The windows cranks doubled as a weight-lifting workout. It had a huge trunk, perhaps big enough for two people. The back hatch was massive and the mechanism that held this hatch open while one dug deep into the trunk for a lost pen or shoe, had long ago faltered. If opened, a second person would have to hold the heavy hatch door up and open for the other to dig in the trunk. If this was not done, death may or may not ensue.

The car had a permanent scent of fuel, oil, exhaust, dirt, and vinyl; the likes of which have never been replicated. When turned on, the car roared like a monster truck rally. If the radio was working, it had to be turned up all the way in order to hear the music over the deafening sound of the car. If a passenger had something to say, shouting would not suffice, a megaphone was needed. When driving at any speed below 80 miles per hour, the car shook and vibrated so much that Decadence developed toned arms from gripping the steering wheel (above 80, if you could get to that point, the car hummed and became the smoothest ride imaginable).

To amp up the class of this fine vehicle, Decadence saved her loose change and invested in fuzzy cow-print seat covers for the two front bucket seats and the back bench seat. They were expensive and really gave Decadence the look she was going for...

Oh, and before Decadence was to drive it to school, it had spent the last 18 months in the car repairman's lot due to his inability to figure out what exactly was wrong with it...beyond the fact that it was 14 years old and had 230,000 miles on it.

This is not the actual car, but it is damn close. One noted difference: the Wolfgang Edition had white rim-style hubcaps and had a bit more of an attitude.

What's that? You have never heard of a Volkswagen Scirocco? Once again: You have not lived! Also,  it is quite possible that they stopped selling them in the US after 1984 or 1985. Even Wikipedia reports a gap between production from 1992-2008. Decadence has not seen one driving down the road in at least 5 years.

Many people during the reign of the Scirocco made
comments that it looked like this car, but this is a Delorean,
and much more expensive; plus it starred
in a few movies about going back to the future

Back to the sweet 16 ride...Decadence's parents pulled it out of the shop just in time to practice driving it, obtain the coveted driver's license, and prepare for the debut at Oconee County High School as a driver. On the morning young Decadence was to drive to school the first time, she took off down the mile long (newly paved after a lifetime of gravel road living) road to the "main" road. Only this time, when the car began the incline of the one and only hill on said road, it shut off. Without warning, the car died and because it didn't have those confangled things called "automatic..." or "anti-lock..." blah blah blah, it seized up and began to roll immediately down the same hill, rapidly. Somehow the deep ditches on either side of the road were avoided and the car came to a stop in the middle of the road.

Was this a sign to the parents that this car would try on multiple occasions to murder dear Decadence? No. They simply said as they would so many times in the future. "Well, let's take it back to Darcy and get it fixed." (Darcy's name was not changed for the purposes of this blog.)

At a certain point, Decadence began to feel
that she too drove a car like this...

A few months and break-downs later, the neighbors knew Decadence a bit better after picking her up off the side of the road and hauling her home and her parents began to speak of obtaining a cell phone "for emergencies only." Decadence's unsuccessfully presented alternative was of course: replace the car.

On one seemingly uneventful spring night during this time, Decadence was driving home from her brother's soccer game while the rest of the family stayed behind at the field. While driving, Decadence noticed the slightest bit of tugging from the steering wheel, but it was so slight that it went by unnoticed until later reflection. Pulling the car around the driveway that circled in front of the house, the car suddenly began pulling and lurching to the left as if she had slammed into something on the right side of the car. The only thing that was on the right side of the car was the new car Decadence's father had bought only weeks earlier.

Panic stricken that she had hit her father's new car and was now aimed directly at a large pine tree in the front yard, Decadence tried to pull the car back into the center of the gravel driveway. No matter how hard she pulled, the car aimed for the pine tree. Decadence slammed on the brakes until the car finally came to a halt.

Decadence jumped out of the car to inspect her father's car for damage. No damage. She walked to her car to inspect, all seemed normal on the right side of the car. She walked to the front of the car, all clear. Same with the left. Walking back around the car, she noticed that the gravel was out of place around the right front tire. Gouges of gravel had been made by this tire. Then she saw it, the wheel was hanging off to the right of the car, held to the car by a cable. How did she not see this before? Because she was only looking for damage to the side and bumper? Leaning to look under the car she saw what had been a solid axle, now broken in half and partially laying on the ground.

"What am I supposed to do now?!" Decadence screamed into the night. Of COURSE no one in the family had cell phones. Who would she call? What should she do? Well, first things first, go get the camera. After snapping a few shots of the axle and wheel, still no arrival of the family. Decadence only lasted a few minutes after picture time before she lost her marbles. Her emotional 16-year-old self took over and she sat on the walkway curb and sobbed...until her parents came home. Their response? "Huh! Will you look at that! Well, we'll have it towed over to Darcy's place in the morning and get it fixed."
Decadence was not soothed or amused with any part of this response.

The pictures of this incident have not been seen in many years, but hopefully this picture will satisfy your need for a visual example-if the car involved is the monster truck "Thunder Beast"

To be continued...