Even though my first cars were all American and spanned the muscle car spectrum, at one point I decided that I needed a ‘serious car’ and found that in a Mars Red 1985 Volkswagen GTI. This was about 1992 or so and even though it was an older model, it was still the current body style and felt like a new car. The one I picked up may as well have been a new car as it was in amazing shape. I bought it directly from its one and only owner quickly became a fan of driving. Mine was identical to the feature image car, though I eventually upgraded the wheels to the factory BBS models and swapped the grill for a European 16v model and of course, a German license plate, because that’s what you do, right? Yeah, it wasn’t fast, but it was quick and handled like nothing I had ever driven to date which meant my lifted ’76 K5 Blazer was increasingly left parked as I zipped around town in my little red rocket. Truth be told, I’d love to have both the GTI and the Blazer back, but would probably still drive the GTI more, especially with today’s gas prices…
1970s Harlem: Hardship, Culture, and the Birth of a New Era
The Harlem of the 1970s was a neighborhood defined by sharp contrasts. It faced some of the most difficult economic and social challenges in its
