Ramblin' Wreck
Its most noticeable role is leading the football team into Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field, a duty which the Reck has performed since 1961.
The term "Ramblin' Wreck" has been used to refer to students and alumni of Georgia Tech much longer than the car that now bears the name has been in existence.
Other workers in the area began to refer to these vehicles and the men who drove them as "Rambling Wrecks from Georgia Tech.
[5] The student body initially nicknamed the vehicle "Floyd's Flivver" but eventually began to call the car the "Ramblin' 'Reck.
"[6][7][8] The first mention of Field's Ford as a Ramblin' 'Reck was in 1926 when he performed an overhaul of the car's engine, body, and paint job with the help of the campus machine shop.
He bought the mahogany dash from a parts dealer in Caracas, Venezuela and used Convair 440 aluminum sheets to replace the flooring.
Johnson, after great deliberation, agreed to take $1,000, but eventually returned the money in 1984 so that the car would be remembered as an official donation to Georgia Tech and the Alexander-Tharpe Fund.
According to Tech lore, Bobby Dodd was so enamored with the Lincoln gold, he changed the football helmet and uniform color to match the new Ramblin' Wreck paint scheme.
[27] George would mastermind the 1974 change of colors as well as a major refurbishment of the Wreck in 1982 in time for Georgia Tech's 1985 centennial celebration.
[29] An aftermarket chrome stone guard was added to protect the grill, The emblems on the side were removed and replaced by a basic GT decal on the doors.
The Wreck has had numerous mechanical and cosmetic repairs over the years since Pete George's initial full rebuild.
Reck Club performed a major off body restoration in the Spring of 2000 that saw the car repainted and the engine rebuilt.
[29] Reck Club coordinated their second major restoration following damage incurred during a highway accident on June 22, 2007, on Interstate 75 in Monroe County, about 60 miles south of Atlanta.
It also makes appearances for other Georgia Tech sports teams: it is often seen before big basketball games at Hank McCamish Pavilion, occasionally parked outside of Russ Chandler Stadium during warm weekend baseball series, and has attended several softball games a year at the new mid-campus stadium.
[33] Every spring, the Institute holds a ceremony, known as When the Whistle Blows, to honor students, staff, and faculty who died during the previous year.
[32] When a freshman first reaches campus for FASET (orientation), one of the many traditions that they are introduced to is that freshmen cannot touch the Wreck until the completion of their first year.
[42] If a freshman touches the Wreck between convocation and the last day of classes in the Spring, they will receive bad luck throughout their college career and GT will be cursed to lose to UGA in football that year.
The soft top has a chrome support strut, which features a brass classic Tech T and 1952 yellow jacket.
Dean Dull initiated a group known as the Ramblin' Wreck Committee of the Student Council to aid in his search for a mascot.
Don Gentry, the president of Reck Club in 1961, was the first student to drive the Wreck as he aided in retrieving the Model A from Ted Johnson's home.
During this period, Reck Club was relieved of its RAT rules enforcement duties and given more wholesome jobs of maintaining the Wreck, upholding traditions, and generating school spirit.
Before the game, the current driver Dekle Rountree decided to traverse the slope up to visit Birmingham's Vulcan statue.
The Tech students responsible for the car's safekeeping frightened the encroaching Bulldog fans away by producing a concealed 9 mm pistol.
[25] The farthest trips the Ramblin' Wreck has ever traveled from Atlanta were the 1970 Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, Colorado, in 1990 for Tech's NCAA Final Four appearance against UNLV.
[25] On June 15, 2007, the Wreck was involved in an accident while being towed to a wedding south of Atlanta in a covered car trailer.
[27] The December 2007 Bellsouth Real White Pages for Greater Atlanta featured the Ramblin' Wreck with censored flags.
[61][63] Local newspapers such as the Cherokee Times, Augusta Chronicle, and Gwinnett Daily Post have also printed articles about the Wreck.
[75] Almost a year later, the student filed suit against Georgia Tech and an auto shop responsible for installing handles on the roof of the car.
The lawsuit cites the failure of the auto shop's handles as the reason for the fall and claims the university promoted the unsafe use of a vehicle by students.
[75][76] In September 2013, the student injured in the April 2009 accident, won a settlement of $1.36 million from the Georgia Board of Regents and Eco-Clean, Inc.[77] The 2012 edition of EA Sports' NCAA football video game featured the addition of the Ramblin' Wreck leading Georgia Tech's football team onto the field at all games played in Bobby Dodd Stadium.
