Porsche, Bugatti, Ferrari – They Can't Hold a Candle to This 1987 VW; Jay Leno Approves

Some people like cars in the same way other people like air: they simply need them in their lives. They can’t exist without them. How else would one explain the overflow of barn finds, junkyard finds, garage finds, and whatnot? Don’t take my word for it; leave it to the professionals to explain how this vicious virus works.

Jay Leno is the type of car guy who doesn’t get easily impressed with pretty much anything anymore, having seen, driven, or owned almost every relevant make and model there is. And yet, there are exceptions, even for the famous know-it-all. Equally renowned for his own virulent passion for all things cars, Jason Cammisa gives the man with the Garage the ride of a lifetime - in a Volkswagen.

And no, we’re not talking about the kind of situation where we like to play with corporate mergers and acquisitions facades and say that a Bugatti is a VW (which it was before a particular Croatian genius took over). It’s a plain-Jane grocery-getter with absolutely no apparent frills or skills but with plenty of bills. The Scirocco - the 16-valve one.

Surprisingly, Jay Leno has never driven one (which is something rare to start with), but critically, the car journalist has owned one for 26 years. Not the model, the exact car, a second-generation VW Scirocco from 1987, which the car know-it-all bought in 1996 for the astronomical price of $1,570, with 28,813 miles on its odo (46,360 km).

It has since been heavily modified with better suspension, a larger engine (well, this is the sixth different powerplant the car has had under the Camissa ownership), and other tweaks and twists detailed in the video below.

The car's story is – wouldn’t you expect it – filled with epic moments right from the get-go when a young college freshman, Jason, was looking for a car. After searching for a while, he found one in reasonably decent shape, titled to a Wall Street broker who left the VW in his mother’s care. The future car reporter bargained for six weeks over the phone with the lovely lady, eventually reaching a deal for two large.

However, the car had a broken window on the passenger side, and the repair cost was deducted; hence, the convenience check American Express issued with the seller's name on it was $1,570 ($430 was the grand total for fixing it). Funny enough, the man who eventually went on to drive the world’s most expensive and powerful cars on the planet had to use his dad’s credit card to get the sports coupe VW.

And yet, all things considered, the old and repeatedly repaired Volkswagen automobile has been the best bang for Jason’s dad's buck in the last 26 years. It's hard to believe, and even harder to believe, that Jay Leno never got behind the wheel of one until now.

The Scirocco was the German carmaker’s replacement for the Karmann Ghia; a two-door coupe penned by Giorgetto Giugiaro and launched in 1974. The 2+2-seater shared the platform with the first VW Golf, with the strong Kammback design on the Scirocco supposed to inspire a sense of sportiness in the brand’s lineup. It was among the first series of cars in VW’s history that used water-cooling instead of the until-then signature trait of air-cooled architectures.

The first generation was sold in half a million examples and replaced in 1981. In 1985, the 16-valve transverse inline-four engine debuted and garnered the praise of motoring media for its 7,200 RPM high-revving demeanor. The feisty engine became available on the North American market in 1986. The uprated models were easily distinguishable from the regular examples.

Jason’s example is not a matching-numbers survivor after going through several driving-improving modifications. A different gearing in the manual box was adopted so that the top gear would keep the car in a more manageable rev range than the original 5,000 RPM at 70 mph (112 kph). The engines came and went; some got to be built before blowing up, while others had a short life due to the owner’s peculiar driving style.

The nickname ‘Slideways’ ought to give you a better idea about how Jason Cammisa preferred to thrash his Scirocco. Still, his lead-footed attitude wasn’t entirely responsible for the car’s annoying habit of frying a piston. One episode saw a new motor put in the car after the donor automobile (a VW Jetta) caught fire.

The two-liter was 5,000 miles fresh out of a build, but it had one catastrophic flaw: the oil dipstick wasn’t the correct size (it was shorter). Unaware of the mishap, the owner flooded the 16-valve fuel-injected powerplant with an extra liter of oil so that the level would stay between the markings on the metal strip. The lubricant overspilled into the positive crankshaft ventilation (PCV) system and found its way into the intake, eventually killing a compression ring.

Episodes such as these separate the boys from car nuts, and Jason was paid a visit by a bunch of his friends who brought a salvaged scrapyard engine. One thing led to another, and here it is now, some decades later, with a two-liter engine that does 135 mph (217 kph, as tested by Jason on the Autobahn, the limitless-speed German highway).

Currently at 111k miles (179,000 km), the car has been through its fair share of repairs, modifications, rebuilds, and other improvement-inducing alterations. Some $30k have gone into this average-Joe-looking old Volkswagen that is more fun to drive than anything else on wheels (at least, for its car-headed owner).