Everything is better topless

When I was younger, the appeal of a low cost vehicle was too enticing for reason. That's how I bought my first $150 car; a 1977 Volkswagen Scirocco.

With a 1.6 liter, mechanical fuel injected, and SOHC inline 4 cylinder mated to a four speed manual transmission, this little German coupe, which I named Gretchen, was waiting for me on the side of the road in Everett when I drove past. The price in the window reflected the damage to the nose of the car, but I didn't care. She came home with me.

On the drive home, I noticed the death-wobble at any speed over 50mph, and that the tire roar was deafening. I tried to drive Gretchen for my daily commute, but even I couldn't handle the compromise.

So, what to do with a fun little car that couldn't be driven at speeds exceeding 50mph, that got killer fuel economy, and was totally superfluous? Naturally, I cut the roof off.

I know many of you are reading this and thinking that it's stupid to even consider owning this thing. I get that. Others of you would point out, accurately, that VW Sciroccos are sub-frame cars and that the roof is an integral part of the chassis, keeping the body from folding in half like a manilla folder. You're right, and that's why engineers spend so much time strengthening the sub-frames of convertibles. My solution to this dilemma was to stop using the doors.

One trip to Harbor Freight later, I'd cut the roof off with a $20 angle grinder and $4 in cutoff wheels. It took 15 minutes to perform the operation, and I immediately loved Gretchen immensely. With a light film of sweat on my brow, I realized that my high speed conundrum had been solved; never again would anyone be tempted to drive this bavarian bomber at speeds exceeding 25mph, let alone 50mph.

I called my buddy Josh, babbled incoherently about my new creation, and raced lethargically to his house. His enthusiasm matched my own once he experienced low speed cruising in a chassis never designed to accommodate the flexibility that Gretchen now exhibited in corners, traversing pot holes, or even changing lanes. She was terrifyingly beautiful.

Several weeks later, I came home from work to find Gretchen missing from the driveway. I'd left her sitting for a few days, and water had started collecting in the apparently water-tight floor pan. Maybe one of my buddies had decided to drill some holes to facilitate drainage. After calling each person in my contact list, I was further befuddled. Had someone stolen a roofless 1977 VW Scirocco with major sheet metal damage? I never found the answer to that question. It's possible that one of the neighbors got tired of the eyesore and had my German beauty towed off. It could be that a friend decided to save me from myself and took Gretchen out of my life. I just don't know.

The one thing I'm certain of, though, is that at no point in my life have I so distinctly improved a vehicle with so little effort. And that's how I'm justified in claiming that everything's better topless.