One of the good things about being associated with the car business is that you will never be without wheels for any length of time; there is always something kicking around for you to drive. When the 1974 Corolla finally met its maker, I needed a car to drive me and my stuff to the lake or the ski hill and I needed it fast. My parents had a garage and there were always cars on Garage Liens there. It was a strange quirk of life that more often than you might think, people just walked away from their car, sometimes because they could not pay the bill or for some other reason. At this point, I still loved cars and I wanted a good driver.
I was far more interested in motorcycles at this time in 1986 than I was in cars (that installment will come later) so a car for me was something that kept me dry, had a nice interior, was cheap and didn’t need much wrenching. Even though I grew up working on stuff, I was never terribly happy with getting greasy, so any car I had must be reliable.
At the back of the lot we had a really ugly 1978 Rabbit Diesel L four door. It had been brought to us by a hippie-granola woman who complained of brake problems, had them done and then couldn’t pay the bill, which was like $300. The car was covered with surface rust and was that horrid “safety orange” (PN: All I could find was a yellow one; sorry) that the Germans loved that the time.
The good points were the engine was excellent, with 400+psi in each cylinder and it started up cold with no drama. The interior was brown mouse fur but it was German mouse fur and it was the L model, so it looked good. It also had new brakes all around, which is what the unpaid bill was all about. I ran it around the block and it was very tight and peppier than I thought it would be. The surface of the body looked awful but the underside was fine, no problems in any areas at all. The rust had formed on stone hits, as the car had been living on a gravel road in Sooke. It was the first drive of a long love affair with Rabbit Diesels.
The Rabbit has been discussed on COAL more than once before but I will add my impressions of them. The 1975-76 models had many teething problems and were best avoided but by 1977, most of the early glitches were ironed out and the ones that were not were easy to take care of. The Rabbit had a great body structure and excellent suspension. Nothing available at the time in the class drove better. The seating position was exceptionally good, with high seats and the steering wheel and shifter were in the right places. With the rear seat folded you could get tons of stuff in the back.
Finally, the cars were very easy to repair; all the parts from a 1977 model were the same as a 1980 and thus cheap and easy to get. The diesel model made all of 48 hp in the 1.5 litre but it did not feel slow. The torque of the diesel was amazing in how it could pull you around town in third gear. It was really not any slower than anything else and it got like 50 mpg. One tank would last three weeks for me and cost less than $20 to fill on those days.
Rabbit Diesels were very popular in Soviet Canuckistan and they sold well; this despite the price tags on them. A Rabbit Diesel L four door was priced at over $8000 in Canada when it was new in 1978, which at the time would have bought you a really well equipped Impala. Clearly, many people were not thinking dollars per pound and there were loads of wrecks around for anything you might need. Anyway, my Rabbit was in need of body and paint so over to my body guy we went. When you are in the car business, you get to know many rather “odd” people and “Wham-bam-thank-you-Ma’am-Bodyman-Sam” was one of those. Sam, when not on an extended drunk, could make anything look good, even a Rabbit as bad as mine was. The secret to Sam was getting him right off a big bender, when he was broke and had to pay back his loan shark. By chance I did; Sam was hard up for cash, so I made a deal for $500 cash for bodywork and paint. I would drop the Rabbit off Friday afternoon and pick it up on Monday.
When I picked up the car, it looked like new. All the rust was gone and the paint was perfect. Sam was beaming at the work (no doubt done by the twenty cousins from India who worked there illegally) and all was good. I now had a very nice Rabbit for the total cost of $150 (what we had into it) to clear the lien and $500 in body and paint. Not bad for a good ride. In fact, it was an excellent little car. It drove very nicely and was really cheap to run. The interior was also very nice for the era.
I drove that Rabbit for almost a year and I don’t have many memories of it because I treated it like a disposable appliance but I do have one interesting vignette from it. In the fall of 1986, my girlfriend and I were really tired and stressed from working and studying at the same time. We decided to rent a cabin on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, in Tofino. It is a beautiful place in summer but we were going in November, the stormiest month in these parts. We loaded up the Rabbit and headed out from Victoria. It is only about 350 km but the road is very twisty, windy and narrow. The rain was coming down in torrents the whole way but the Rabbit never missed a beat. On some really steep stretches, second gear was required but really, 48 hp was all that were necessary.
When we got to the resort, I gingerly went down the long driveway. Half way through there was a huge lake. We pondered what to do; I reasoned that there was no ignition to short out and the air horn was high, so I put in in low gear and had right at it. The drag of the water slowed the car down quite a bit so I stomped it and it kept pulling. The water was splashing up the window sills and I was afraid the car would float and sink but low and behold, we made it. The owner of the place was watching and was amazed we had done it. My skeptical girlfriend laughed like hell and at the moment christened the car, “Scuba-Bunny.” The name stuck for the rest of the time I had it.
When it comes to cars, I cannot stand success at all and cars never meant much to me anyway. Motorcycles were what mattered so if I could flog a car at a profit before having to fix anything, I was always happy. In fact, I did the same thing with motorcycles; I would buy one with fresh tires and recent service, ride it for a season and sell it. It was cheaper than tires and service. Anyway, the next riding season came up and I need to get rid of Scuba-Bunny to get a nice bike to ride. She still looked good (I always thought she was female for some reason) and Rabbit Diesels were really easy to sell. It went into the paper and sold the first day for $2000. I had driven it for a year and made $1350, a tidy profit. It was always nice to drive at a profit, which I usually managed to do in those days, until my next car, which was a horror story.
Rabbits were far and away the best small car on the market in their heyday, 1977-1980. I had quite a few more over the years because I could always make money on them but what struck me was how easy they were to work on and how cleverly they were designed for home maintenance. Things like changing heater motors took minutes, same with anything else on the cars like starters. Three wrenches would take most of the car apart and there were tons of used parts around. The American (Westmoreland, PA-built) Rabbits were never as good and were totally shunned in Victoria. The 1977-80 models soldiered on far longer than you could think possible. I recall when I returned to Victoria for a visit in 2003 there were still a surprising number of them on the road. And every Bunny has a Tale.
(photos by Paul Niedermeyer)
Great story. My 2nd car was a Diesel Rabbit L. Full vinyl interior with no radio for $300 and a new battery. What I remember (other than all the electrical problems from the leaking windshield) was driving 5 hours to to see the Greatful Dead in New York and halfway back on $7 worth of gas.
I always liked the round headlights way more then the square ones.
An uncle by marriage had one of these as his commuter (much easier on fuel than his mid 70s Jeep CJ he owned at the same time). The thing I remember is that rust took the Rabbit off the road long before the mechanicals failed.
Right on. Transportation when it rains and is cold.
One of these days I’ll tell the story (in a comment not an article) of why I temporarily thought Canada was indeed Canuckistan.
Hey, if Fox News says it, then it must be true!
When my sister got married, their first car was a 77 gas Rabbit in that same safety orange. Once it was left at our house and I got to drive it about 60 miles on 2 lane highways to take it back to them. My memory of the car was how quick it was, really a blast to drive. They had bought it cheap as it was a repaired wreck. Someone had cut it in two and welded a new back half onto the front half. Actually, they had done a very good job, as the car still felt very tight.
Their second car was an American 81 Rabbit diesel that they bought used around 1984. This was the first of a long string of VW diesels that my sister has driven. Being an American Rabbit, it had a completely different feel to it, but the car was a good runner for them. The only time I can recall the thing being short on power was riding with them on a stormy night. there was a very stiff headwind and the car had trouble getting over about 50 mph. Otherwise, it was a good road car. Sis had a 50 mile daily commute to work, and she really loved that 50 mpg.
Her newer diesels have been bigger and more powerful, but have never been quite as good on gas as the old black Rabbit.
Yes, the gas Rabbits were very quick for their day. The long-stroke motor made good torque, too.
North America is a place were people think they need at least 200 hp for any car and it is nuts. The Rabbit Diesels I have owned never felt short of power in the city. I have even taken them on long road trips with no problem.
Granted, this is 25 years ago; traffic, especially on mountain roads, moves a lot faster now than then. On the steepest road I ever had a Rabbit Diesel on it maintained 80 km/h, which is no worse than many cars in those days.
These days, traffic would scream up that hill at 100 km/h plus without even trying hard.
What odd little bumper overriders – never seen them before on a MK1.
The number of daily-driver diesel Rabbits here is truly remarkable. They must still be reproducing.
Rabbits are infinitely reparable as long as they are not rusty. The diesel motor can be pulled and taken apart in a couple of hours. The only real problem they ever have is valve seals, which can be easily. When they get to very high kms, they will need a rebuild. I used to get them done for $300 all in and I’d put the motors back in myself.
The injection pumps on these things were an amazing piece of equipment; I never saw one fail.
I have seen Rabbit Diesel motors with 500,000 km, which I verified from service records. By this point the compression will fall a bit and they get hard to start on cool mornings. Since a rebuild was so cheap and easy, no big deal.
Volkswagen what? Never heard of it.
A good story there!
My best friend briefly had a bright yellow 3 door ’77 Rabbit. His was the base model gasser. it had the little black rubber caps that went over the spindles, held in place by the lug bolts. he’d bought it in I think 1987 or so.
It had the black vinyl interior, no tach, AM radio, but had the factory metal sliding sunroof, probably the only major option and had the 4spd (I think) manny tranny. His was the first year for fuel injection if I recall and had many of the issues, such as the funky fuse block replaced with I think the spade units in use now on every car ever built since then. The sunroof didn’t open as the crank gear and/or cable were stripped/broken as these were still hand cranked and were built by Golde, who provided the mechanism for these for VW since the 50’s, at first with the cloth sliding sunroofs, and since ’64 for the metal ones.
The paint looked fairly new and the interior was still in great shape, though the front seats were hard as rocks due to the compacted horse hair stuffing, yes, horse hair! So he found some old pillows and stuffed the seats with them, under the original upholstery even to improve them.
One day, I recall going over to help him pack the car as he was going to drive it to Colorado to attend college and he had his stereo in it, his albums (what he had at that time), his clothes and other sundry stuff stuffed into the back of it and off he went.
Sadly, the car ended up developing problems like his brakes went out while in Colorado amongst other issues that reared itself over time but were not apparent when he first got it. He sold it after he got back to a guy who drove it to LA and it got totaled in an accident on its way down if I recall right.
I’ve always loved those cars, especially the first iteration with the round headlights.
I was interested in 2 running, but very, very cheap rabbits back in the late 80’s, one was I think a ’77, was that light metallic green paint that was so faded to as to have almost no color left on the top surfaces. It was a 3 door with black interior for some rediculous price like $70 or something, or was I misreading the price tag? It was at some used car lot in Tacoma where my best friend had been looking at an old VW bus once.
The second one was a dark brown ’79, a 4 door if I recall that was, I think $500, might’ve been less, I forget now, it was being sold in front of a house in Tacoma’s North End. It looked OK from the outside anyway. Didn’t buy either though.
Just curious – in your opinion, is an old VW Rabbit cheaper to fix and maintain than, say, a Volvo 240 or 740?
I’ve had both- a ’83 Jetta when I was in High School and now 15 years later, a 79 Volvo. Repair costs are determined by your specialist- if you have a good VW specialist nearby who charges less than others get a VW. If the Volvo guy is good, get a Volvo. However, if you’re going to do the work yourself, they’re about the same parts cost wise. Both cars have their quirks- some jobs are easier on the Volvo and others on a VW.
Cost wise, its fuel that’s the difference. Volvos are twice as thirsty and heavy as a VW. So, if that’s an issue, a Rabbit/Golf is cheaper. However, if you live in the salt belt, a Volvo will last longer without rusting, which also needs to be taken into account. Golfs rust in strange places- around the windshield, rear suspension towers, wheelarches, and just about anywhere- yet some are still rust free.
In my experience, the VW was much more fun to drive- it was a Jetta 1.8 GLI (GTI with a trunk). However, it used cheap parts in important places- like the clutch cable bracket, shift linkage, and other bits and pieces that snapped in old age. It just didn’t feel as ‘solid’ as the Volvo- although the interior was put together well. ** Note this only applies to Jettas. Rabbits were either slapped together in Germany before 1980 when the line was running at double speed, in the USA out of malaise era GM quality parts, or in Mexico out of GM Mexico quality plastics.
Jettas on the other hand, were built on a different assembly line that didn’t move as quickly as the Golf line, so build quality was far better. They used european quality VW parts.
I had a ’78 Bronze Edition Rabbit. It was a special fuel saver edition, and they all were a metallic orangy bronze color. It has a 1bbl Solex Beetle carb, and was the only U.S. model with a catalytic converter. It had a sunroof, and was one of best and most fun cars I ever owned. I did most repairs myself, too. I replaced the instrument insert with one from a Scirocco, so I had a tach and temp gauge. Converting the wipers was a simple matter of knocking out a plastic pin, and adding an intermittant wiper relay. I also replaced the sealed beams with Hella H4 lamps. The only pain were those windshield leaks, and yes, I had to replace the relay plate.
Bronze Edition brochure:
http://www.rallyrabbit.com/brochure/
We didn’t get this model in Canada. The Rabbit by time was an upmarket item in Canada, which may surprise some readers here. Canadians have always had different tastes than the USA. The Rabbit was a hit because it was roomy, fun to drive and not horribly hard to keep on the road. The diesels were by far the most common and they were not cheap; a Rabbit Diesel in 1978 pushed $8000, which is in 2012 dollars $27,300. That was at least $1000 more than an Impala with air.
VW should never have sold the US Rabbits here. The were simply bad cars, things like bad casting in the engine or broken cases, these things happened all the time on the American cars. It was really dumb because Canadians were paying try stupid prices for these cars. The German cars were a riot do drive but the American cars sucked.
Rabbits from 1977-1980 were the hot properties and even sold at good prices in 1993 when I left the country and (thankfully) escaped working with cars all the time.
My first car was a 1984 Rabbit diesel 2-door with the 4-speed stick. My dad’s cousin gave it to me in 1992. I thought it was a great student car, which served me well for my last two years of highschool and first three years of university. If someone not mechanically inclined owned the car, I can see how they would have probably been less impressed at the repair bills though. While in highschool, I even ran a summer business cutting lawns out of that car. Flip the backseat forward and a pushmower, weed whacker, rake, small gas cans all fit back there fine.
When I got it, it needed a small section of floorpan welded-up and was due for a timing belt replacement. While I owned it, it needed a headgasket, one front wheel bearing, radiator, the motor mount at the transmission, and the occasional glow plug replaced. I did all the work myself, most of it with my dad’s help. I also replaced a seatbelt latch mechanism that broke, and the hatch, which rusted out from the inside as is common for these cars. The only thing it needed which I took it to a shop for was an exhaust system repair to replace the downpipe from the exhaust manifold. Much later, the exhaust system also rusted-out just ahead of the muffler. I just replaced it with the metal tube from an old vacuum cleaner hose, which was the perfect length, and ran it with that “straight pipe” for the last year I owned it.
The windshield gasket started leaking, as is apparently also common. The water dripped onto the back of the fuse panel and filled-up the relays with water. I think I was able to dry them out after disassembling them and got them working again. May have needed to replace one or two. I smeared some cement over the windshield gasket, which wasn’t pretty but it worked to seal the leak.
To shift a VW, you pressed down on the shifter then left and forward as if shifting into first gear. The reverse gate eventually wore-out, so you no longer had to press down, and when shifting into first I had to be careful to not go too far left and put it in reverse.
Then the starter solenoid failed, and since it’s almost impossible for consumers to buy repair parts for a starter any more, I bought a reman starter. Apparently it’s almost impossible to find a good reman starter anymore either. Every one I got had a problem: slipping drive gear, shorted winding, etc. I wound-up scrapping the car before finding a reliable starter, so I ultimately took the last one back for a refund.
What finished the car off was it developed a hard-starting problem. When cold, you could start it by towing it behind another vehicle, but could not get it started with the starter. Once you got it running, it would be fine until the engine cooled down. We assumed that the compression was low and the engine wasn’t worth rebuilding so I scrapped it. Much later my brother got interested in VW diesels and had a similar problem with one of his cars, which he determined was due to a dried-out O-ring seal in the injection pump allowing it to lose its prime once it sat for awhile. 🙁
I had a ’78 Rab that I bought new, and yes, it was “Panama Brown”, ie, orange. I loved the color. As I recall, the great yellow color, available in ’77, which I would have preferred, was no longer available in ’78.
Sciroccos had fuel injection beginning in ’76. I thought that in the US Rabbits were also equipped this way. By ’78 the only engine you could get in a Rabbit was fuel injected.
The fuse panels in Rabbits were junk. They required periodic replacement. The ignition system (Bosch) was also junk and required constant attention. I always kept a can of WD-40 in the glovebox to keep the ignition happy on days that it rained. I did this for 16 years. I must have been out of my mind.
I drove my mechanic friend’s diesel pickup on a number of occasions and was amazed at how much vibration was transmitted to the interior at idle. The whole dash and steering wheel was a blur. You had to be a masochist to own one of these turds.
Back in 1985,one of my high school buddy’s Dad had one of these, in brown, although it was a ’77, not a ’78. My friend had his own car, a ’68 or (was it a ’69?) Cougar laying in his garage that he was forever working on, busy “souping it up”. He loved driving his Dad’s Rabbit so much, he bought the Rabbit off of his Dad, and wound up selling his Cougar soon afterward! He got sick of working on the Cougar and never driving it. That diesel Rabbit was simple, and indestructible! He ran that car for years afterwards.
I drove a dozen good years in an ‘82 two door and an ‘84 pickup in this millennium. The pickup was brilliant. Could sleep in the back. Front wheel drive got it places it shouldn’t have been. Both were diesels, so biodiesel powered most of the miles. They required a couple hundred bucks in maintenance every six months, but they were a joy to drive and run.