'88 Fox GL: It's small, boxy, old and not very comfortable on long trips. On the other hand, it's a blast to drive (if you overlook the lackluster acceleration), gets good gas mileage and, the clincher, my wife loves it. That last one leaves me little choice but to keep it going.

1988 Volkswagen Fox GL

Sometimes the universe applies Murphy's Law so over-zealously that it wraps around itself to yield a good result. I think it happens just to heighten the effect, something like the soothing sound of a gentle rain interrupted by the sudden crack of a close-by lightning strike.

Two vehicles in my 4-driver family decided to develop mysterious, elusive, frustrating, disabling electronic gremlins at roughly the same time. One was temporarily replaced by pressing my old Dodge pickup truck into service as a commuter, but that still left me short one vehicle.

My wife, who greatly prefers small vehicles, decided to accompany me on a trip to the local auto parts store one day. She still can't explain why she decided to ride along that day. I have a friend who is a mechanic and worked at that store at the time. He had just finished getting the '88 Fox roadworthy after buying it for about what it would be worth as shredded scrap metal. He had put new tires on it and fixed a few minor problems. He can't explain why he bought it since he doesn't like small cars.

The original owner's last straw came from an electrical gremlin -- the air conditioner only pretended to work. My friend "fixed" that by routing a wire from the compressor, through the firewall, to the fusebox, with a simple alligator clip on the end. Not a very elegant solution, but it worked and fits the K.I.S.S. principle beautifully.

My friend knew all about the frustrations I was having trying to track down the electronics problems with two cars. He offered to sell the Fox to me or just let me use it until I could get the gremlins exorcised from one of my cars. My wife and I took it for a test drive and she wanted it. I think she'd been in mourning over the loss of her '82 Renault LeCar some years earlier when a little old lady, who didn't bother scraping the frost off anywhere but a peep-hole through the windshield, had backed out onto the highway just as my wife was about to pass by that driveway. (That '82 had been a replacement for our first new car, a 1980 LeCar, which my wife had driven until it simply wore out. When I had pronounced it dead -- not worth another repair -- she had promptly bought the '82, in spite of the fact it had been driven by the previous owner for about 70 miles while overheated. I had to rebuild the engine before it could be driven).

See how diabolically fate shoved us pawns around?

We bought the car for $500. It had gravel in the driver's side mirror and the remote control mechanism for that mirror was non-functional. The driver's seat rocks a bit but I have yet to find a cure. The shifter was as sloppy as an old Beetle's, but I was able to adjust most of that sloppiness out. The tailpipe had a collapsed spot which robbed it of quite a bit of its preciously low reserve power. The steering was and is very precise. The engine ran very well up to about 4000 RPM (well below red-line). The power seems to peak at about 3200 - 3500. The A/C worked very well, thanks to the alligator clip. The paint was simply ugly.

Above photo: Shortly after acquiring the thing. Even immediately after a rain, there's no shine. Note the garage expansion project in progress; note that it was almost ready for rain. (The original garage has the white siding. It was eventually swallowed by the gambrel roof with loft). The lady with hand on hip is my daughter. She had to borrow the Fox for the long commute to her university once. When it overheated on her return trip, she stopped, opened the hood to let the steam clear, and added a quart of oil. I don't know why. She then proceeded to drive it at about 65 mph for about another half hour, 'til it simply wouldn't go any more.

Luckily she was just a few minutes drive from one of my brothers, who's an excellent mechanic. When he removed the head, he noted that the head bolts had never been torqued -- some were slightly more than "finger tight". Maybe that's what saved the engine from completely locking up and warping the head. I replaced the head gasket, but left it to my brother to do the proper torquing, and replaced one of the expensive braided lines from the fuel distributor which I had broken during reassembly. The engine smokes for a few seconds after sitting, but otherwise runs fine. I'll deal with that when I replace the timing belt (it's an interference engine).

I don't think I'll ever get away with pronouncing this car "dead" unless it falls completely apart. As one person put it on Hotrodders.com, "You are doing a paint job that is worth more than the 6k the Fox sold for new." (Of course, that's with the kind and gracious assumption that the paint job I do turns out decently).

2003-12-03: Replacing the heater core

2005-07-22: Side views with some non-stock wheels.

2005-08-25, -11-02: First attempt at painting the hood

2007-05-10 -05-25: Sanding and stripping in preparation for paint

2008-05-28, -06-27: More prep, after a year's delay

2008-07-01: Masking

2008-07-08: epoxy primer

2008-07-10: epoxy, sanding

2008-07-11: filler

2008-07-12: epoxy, again

2008-07-16: epoxy messes

2008-07-19: sand and filler, again