So I went to Amedeo’s for lunch yesterday.

Amedeo’s is a cheery Italian restaurant adjacent the NCSU campus.  If you haven’t been there yet, it’s worth going for the cultural experience alone.  Festooned in cheesy 1970’s Italian restaurant styling, it is packed with NCSU college sports memorabilia and photos.  One doesn’t need to be a fan of the collegiate games to appreciate the lore.

Admittedly - I don’t like college sports.  And it’s not even a passing love-it-or-leave-it feeling; I really think it should be called what it is: professional sports.  “College sports” evokes ideas of house league beach volleyball games and ultimate frisbee on the residence front lawn.  Gazillion-dollar stadiums and coaches making more than some fortune-500 CEO’s is something entirely different.

That said, I recognize that there’s a lot of good in college sports.  The enthusiasm and collegiate patriotism it inspires is the thing of comradery, rivalries and good memories.  I was reminded of this recently when I went for a walk on the Duke University campus, and observed a veritable tent-city outside of the athletic building.  Tickets for some particular game (the details of which I forgot moments into my conversation with the security guard) don’t go on sale until March 8, but there they were - braving the January “winter” (I use the term loosely here) weather - to get good seats.

Now, the knee-jerk jerk inside of me says, “what kind of deranged idiot would camp two months for tickets?”  I’m reminded that this same knee-jerk jerk drove a Harley Davidson Sportster straight from Raleigh to Toronto in one day (800 miles, 14 hours).  Different, yes, but no less insane.

The things we do for love.

But back to Amedeo’s.  While I was chowing down on my spinach fettuccine alfredo, I noticed a small picture on the wall with a caption about “Jimmy V”.  I have heard the name in passing, but didn’t know anything about it other than the fact that it’s connected with an annual golfing event (a sport whose mere mention puts me into fits of uncontrollable laughter - partly because of Robin Williams’ brilliant parody of the sport, and partly because of the absurdity of overweight white men wearing ridiculous costumes and driving little plastic carts to pummel a tiny ball eighteen times).

I did a Wiki lookup on Jimmy Valvano.  If you already know who he is, then you’re certainly not going to learn anything new from me.  If not, click the link and learn for yourself.

He’s the kind of person who could even make a cynical bastard like me appreciate college sports.

That, and a good bowl of spinach fettuccine alfredo, of course.

For the first time in over a decade, I’m not a Volkswagen owner.

We bought a Honda Fit for my wife last February, and put the GTI on a consignment lot. It sold today, and I’m left with a little hole in my heart after abandoning a marque I’ve been with for so long.

My first VW was a ‘90 Golf Diesel. It was speeding-ticket-proof, with its 52 horsepower mill that churned and ground out over 400,000 kilometres before it went on to its next owner.

My next VW was an ‘86 Scirocco. This was my first “true love” - I painted the car a svelte shade of deep silver, and tuned the engine with all sorts of go-fast goodies (for the nerd readers, this included a 290/448 cam, a port-and-polished head, a single-throat Weber throttle body with a port-matched intake, a full cat-less Supersprint header, adjustable cam gear, Boge Turbo struts with H&R springs, front and rear strut braces, and a mean set of Good Year Eagle NCT/2 tires on 14″ 7-spoke rims). Truth be told, the car wasn’t *that* fast, but it sure put a lot of smiles on my face.

I also picked up an ‘81 Scirocco during this time. I wish I still had it - that would have made a perfect rat-rod.

Another car that found its way into my driveway was an ‘84 Rabbit GTI. This is another car I wish I still had; it even had the faux-wood dashboard and plaid seats.

Next car was a ‘97 Golf. This was my first experience with financing a car, and that Golf gave us many, many good miles of service. It’s the car we took with us to Alberta, and it’s the car we tried to take with us to North Carolina. (I’ll save that tale for another blog post)

Last was the GTI. This represented something of an apex for our Volkswagen ownership. We didn’t hold back with this car; it had power-everything, heated leather seats, and that magnificent 180 horsepower turbocharged engine that spanked a lot of cars at the stoplight. The only time this car left us stranded was because of a coil recall, and it didn’t even leave me “in the cold” - it limped its way to the dealer and was promptly fixed.

Alas, the remnants of the VW’s are still around me. I bought the service manuals for every Volkswagen I have ever owned (and a few I didn’t own), and they’re still on my bookshelf. The grease stains from changing the clutch in my Scirocco are still there, as are the notes we made on the inside cover of the manual for the old Golf Diesel.

I still have the Volkswagen hubcap clock that my wife bought me a few years ago.

The odd tools that do-it-yourself Volkswagen mechanics collect are still in my toolbox. This includes the huge allen-key wrench for the transmission, the amp gauge for testing the glowplug draw, and a Momo steering wheel adapter from my old Scirocco.

In fact, I even have the emblem for my Scirocco from the paint job … I chose to “de-badge” that car for the “stealth” look. I never did have the heart to toss that plastic emblem out.

In 1995 I got my first Volkswagen. It was a hand-me-down Golf Diesel that served my father well for over 250,000 km. I put over 150,000 km on it before parting company with it in 1998. That was just the start, though … the next car in my life was a silver Scirocco that really fueled my love for coupes. In two years I had all sorts of trick parts on that car; VW affectionada will appreciate the 290/448 cam, the single-throat Weber throttle body, the SuperSprint header, the port-and-polished head, the Boge suspension with upper and lower strut tower bars, the Momo steering wheel and shift knob, the Audi 5000 centre-console gauge cluster, blah, blah blah.

I picked up another Scirocco around this time (an ‘81), and also had a Rabbit GTI for a bit. We also bought a green ‘97 Gold in 1999, but were forced to sell it when we moved to North Carolina in 2001.

Not to be outdone, we bought our “dream car” early in 2002 - a silver GTI with the 1.8T engine. It had black leather, a 5-speed stick shift, in-dash CD, and every other toy it could be festooned with.

And wow - what a car. It served us well as a daily commute car for over 5 years. Other than the engine coil and window regulator recalls, it’s given us very few problems in the 105,000+ miles we have owned it.

Alas, it’s been replaced with the Honda Fit, and for the first time we’re about to be Volkswagen-less.

In a way, I have been looking forward to a change for a while now. I’ve owned at least one car from the Mark 1, Mark 2, Mark 3 and Mark 4 generation of water-cooled VW’s, and I was just ready for a change.

I still love VW’s, but the new Mark 5’s just didn’t do it for me. I’m sure they’re fantastic cars, but it was just time for something new.

The GTI will go up for sale later this week. I’m gonna miss it, but I’m sure it’ll get a good new home with someone that will let its turbo spin free.