AHOOOGA!
The signature blast of the Ramblin’ Wreck’s horn as the car bursts from the tunnel of Bobby Dodd Stadium means only one thing: It's showtime.
With cheerleaders lining its running boards and football players running up behind the Wreck’s rumble seat, the gleaming old gold-and-white 1930 Model A Ford Sport Coupe races forward, leading Georgia Tech’s football team onto Grant Field as it has, without fail, for every home game since its debut in September 1961.
Not a bad record for a one-of-a-kind antique. The mechanical ingenuity of Tech students embodied by this special mascot have kept the Ramblin’ Wreck rolling on through the decades, whether onto Grant Field, through the streets of Midtown Atlanta or beyond.
PRE-WRECK-UISITES
Although the “Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech” fight song predates the car—and calls upon the memory of a train wreck involving the Tech football team—the term was co-opted by students some 30 years later to describe a completely different vehicle. It first became the nickname for a dilapidated 1914 Ford Model T that Floyd Field, a math professor and later Tech dean of men, drove to work daily from 1916 until 1928. When Field’s car disappeared from campus in 1928—replaced by a newer model—The Technique student newspaper mourned its passing. “What can be more beautiful than faithfulness?” the story asked. “Who can ask more of machinery other than to have it run?”
Field’s Ramblin’ Wreck would later live on in spirit in the Wreck Parade, launched by the administration in 1932 as a safer substitute to the short-lived Old Ford Race between Atlanta and Athens. The parade—now a Homecoming staple and run by the Ramblin' Reck Club—has taken place nearly every year since then, save for when gas shortages during World War II forced its cancellation in 1943 and 1944. These convoluted Wreck contraptions became a common point of pride on campus throughout the 1940s and 1950s for their student builders, whose engineering prowess kept the cars alive.
Around 1959, then-assistant dean of students Jim Dull made it his mission to find an official Ramblin’ Wreck for the university—something that harkened back to Field’s original car. “It was something Dean Dull had on his mind all the time,” says Marilyn Somers, director of Georgia Tech’s Living History Program. “The students had started talking about needing some kind of tangible mascot. Unbeknownst to them, he was already on the lookout for one.”
A SERENDIPITOUS PARKING SPOT
Call it fate. Call it coincidence. Whatever force led Delta pilot Captain Ted Johnson to park his car in front of Towers Hall one day in 1960, it was a benevolent one—and one that would forever change Georgia Tech history.
For when Dull returned to his apartment at Towers that day and spotted Johnson’s pristine 1930 Ford Model A Sport Coupe, he knew he’d found his Ramblin’ Wreck.
Dull left a note on the vehicle, asking the owner to please seek him out at Towers. Hours later, Johnson knocked on Dull’s door. Dull made his pitch to buy the car, but Johnson wasn’t interested. After all, Johnson, his son Craig and a neighbor had spent two years completely renovating the car after rescuing it from a junkyard. It was going to be Craig’s vehicle and he would not part with it.
Undeterred, Dull kept calling and writing Johnson, weaving a story about the grandeur of the car and what it would mean not only to Tech, but also to Johnson’s family legacy.
After a year of pleas, Johnson relented. He agreed to sell the car for $1,000—only $250 above what he sank into its renovation and far less than Dull anticipated. Legendary Yellow Jackets football coach Bobby Dodd himself paid Johnson’s asking price.
Two decades later, Johnson returned the money through a donation to the Institute, saying he’d rather be the man who donated the Ramblin’ Wreck than the man who sold it. A plaque on the Wreck’s dashboard still pays tribute to his donation.
ESTABLISHING TRADITIONS
When this new Ramblin’ Wreck made its inaugural ride out at the first home football game of the 1961 season—a 24-0 rout of Rice—a tradition was born. But here’s the thing about new traditions: It takes a while to sort out the details, both big and small.
For example, now that Tech had a Ramblin’ Wreck, who would drive it? The first driver, Henry Sawyer, IE 64, was chosen by default because he was the junior class president. The next several drivers were selected rather randomly until the Ramblin’ Reck Club (purposely named without the “W”) took over management of the car from a student government committee in 1968. Today, an election among Reck Club members determines the sole driver of the Wreck for each calendar year.
Even though the Ramblin’ Wreck was expected at every home game, Bobby Dodd was not pleased to see it on rainy days; he feared the wheels would leave ruts on the grass playing field. “A lot of the early drivers prayed there wouldn’t be rain during the football season, so they wouldn’t have to go around and around with the coach about coming onto the field,” Somers says.
Arrangements were a bit impromptu whenever the car left its Atlanta sanctuary on early road trips. For an away game at Tennessee in 1963, the Vols’ athletic department offered a safe storage space for the Wreck at Neyland Stadium. But Tennessee fans broke in and vandalized the car by painting it orange and ripping the soft top. From that point on, the Wreck has always stayed in Tech hands.
CARE AND KEEP
The Wreck found itself in the best of hands when Pete George, IE 44, became manager of the nearby Ford Hapeville assembly plant in 1973. Like any new initiative, funding for the Wreck was touch-and-go. George offered up Ford to cover any repairs and restorations, a promise honored by the company until 1994. George oversaw three major restorations of the Wreck, including a paint change selected by Bobby Dodd himself. “Along with Dean Dull, Pete George is considered a patron saint of the Ramblin’ Wreck,” Somers says.
The day-to-day maintenance and operation of the Wreck remains the responsibility of Reck Club members, particularly the driver. “People see us as liaisons of the Institute’s traditions,” says Jill Riley, the 2019 Reck Club president. “These traditions, particularly the Wreck, are a big part of the community on campus; they make us feel more united. We want people to feel excited about them and participate.”
One important rule to remember about the Wreck: No freshmen “probate” members of Reck Club—or freshmen, period—are allowed to touch the car. If they do, Tech will be guaranteed to lose to UGA that year, or so the legend goes. “That rule is a biggie,” Somers says. “They terrify the freshmen at convocation: They mustn’t touch the Wreck.”
The accumulated wisdom of Reck Club members fills a nearly 300-page handbook that has been passed down through the years. “That handbook has definitely been my guiding light in times of need,” says business administration student Ben Damus, the Wreck driver for 2019.
The role of Wreck driver can be all-consuming. He or she alone (there have been four female drivers so far—a fifth, Abi Ivemeyer, will take over in 2020) can drive the one and only Ramblin’ Wreck. (Note: the Alumni Association has its own version of the Wreck, a 1931 Ford Model A Roadster that it uses for alumni and campus events. There’s also a non-working version that resides in the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center at Tech Square.)
The driver must make sure the Wreck shows up camera-ready for endless selfies and Instagram posts at every event where it’s expected, whether long-planned or spur-of-the-moment, on campus or several states away. While serving as the official driver last year, Damus compressed all of his classes into a three-hour block in the late afternoon, from Monday to Thursday, so he can be available during the busy lunch hours for rides and appearances as well as attend every football game, both home and away.
“When you think about other university mascots, it’s easy to think about putting on a costume,” says Gerome Stephens, associate dean of students and Reck Club advisor since 2013. “For their year, the driver becomes a part of the Wreck. When the 1930 Model A drives out onto the field, that doesn’t happen without someone inside of it. The driver brings life and a voice to this special tradition here at Georgia Tech.”
WRECK AND WRECKOVERY
Many a Wreck driver, including Damus, has had to troubleshoot last-minute mechanical malfunctions and mishaps before an appearance or home game.
Lisa Volmar, IE 86, the first female Wreck driver, remembers driving along Fraternity Hill before a home game when the Wreck suddenly broke down. “Everyone was pointing and looking down at me,” she says. “We were on campus, not far from the garage, so I didn’t have any tools with me. I went up the hill to the Phi Delt house and asked, ‘Do you have a butter knife?’” It proved to be the perfect tool for scraping off the timings; the Wreck roared back to life. “The knife was always underneath my seat from that point on,” she says.
For driver Phil Kelley, IE 90, calamity struck when his truck’s welded hitch ball broke off while towing a trailer with the Wreck inside to the NCAA Final Four basketball tournament in Denver in 1990. Only chains held the truck and trailer together. After a quick repair, Kelley and his crew raced more than 850 miles to Denver, arriving just in time for its scheduled appearance.
Driver John Bird, PFE 07, was towing the Wreck to a wedding in June 2007 when the trailer failed, causing the Wreck’s biggest wreck to date. Bird’s truck and the trailer careened into a ditch at 70 mph; both were totaled. Bird and his passenger fortunately walked away with only minor injuries. The Wreck’s damages were more grave—left side smashed, roof torn, body panels cracked. Reck Club members repaired the damage the best they could, using putty for temporary cosmetic fixes in order to have the Wreck ready for the season opener. But another major renovation was inevitable, once there were enough funds.
“Certainly after that accident, there were lots of questions by various individuals and groups about whether Reck Club had all the necessary tools, funding and continuity to manage the Wreck,” Volmar says. In response, the Dean James E. Dull Ramblin’ Reck Endowment Fund was established to provide ongoing financial support.
Thanks to the endowment, the damage from the 2007 accident was remedied and other repairs completed this past summer through a full restoration by Bentley’s Antique Auto Service in Maysville, Ga. The shop has serviced the Wreck since 1995, picking up the baton from Ford. Just as fate brought Dull and Johnson together so many years before, the shop serendipitously found an exact match for the Ramblin’ Wreck—same make, model and year, in great condition—just south of Atlanta for the needed replacement parts.
When the home opener against South Florida rolled around Sept. 7 last season, the newly restored Ramblin’ Wreck was there, as always, for its ride-out, carrying the new Institute President Ángel Cabrera into Bobby Dodd Stadium for the new football coach Geoff Collins’s first game.
“The Ramblin’ Wreck is truly a living icon of the institute,” Damus says. “Reck Club is making sure that we can carry the Wreck onwards and keep it in the best condition to serve the institute for years to come.”
AhOOga!