Posted by William Oliver
(Updated 1/10/2026) Remember when diesels were a thing? For millennials like me, diesels represented quirky, niche vehicles owned by people who wanted to own an environmentally vehicle. Those individuals were often quirky too. Hybrids supplanted diesels as the fuel efficient powertrain of choice for many after VW’s emissions cheating debacle. That being said, they’re still intriguing due to their relative scarcity. Speaking of scarcity, this MK1 Rabbit is probably one of the last of its kind. Seems like it’s in pretty good condition too.
The Rabbit/Golf was a pivotal vehicle for Volkswagen. It successfully transitioned the company away from the rear-engine, rear-wheel drive vehicles of the past. Given the relative explosion of front-wheel drive cars in the late 70s and 80s, it was a smart move.
The EPA only provides fuel economy estimates for the 1984 Rabbit, which Volkswagen offered with a 1.6 liter diesel. Models with a four speed manual were rated at 43 mpg highway. That’s the EPA adjusted number (the original unadjusted one was 50-60 mpg highway, depending on year and model). To put things into perspective, a 2020 Nissan Versa gets 35 mpg highway with its manual transmission. Those diesels were very fuel efficient in their day, although gas engines have come a long way since then.
It appears this Rabbit originated from a VW/Audi dealership in Ontario. Unlike VW’s diesel engines, it seems this dealership is still around. At some point it changed its name Humberview Volkswagen. Perhaps a change of ownership took place in the intervening years? Who knows. Only the Audi dealership maintains something close to the real name. They’re now called Audi Queensway. Maybe in another fifty years they’ll revert to the original name. In any event, it’s nice to see something like this still exists.
Heath McClure’s experiences with the MK1 and MK2 Rabbit diesel are essentially required reading. Head here to check out the details on the 1979 and here for the 1983 model.
I don’t know much, but I know I love the color! Honda sold a Fit in a similar color, and I’d love to find one.
I was pressed for time so I didn’t expand on the Rabbit’s color, but the tradition of painting smaller cars in bright green lived on through 2019. Ford still has a page dedicated to the 2019 Fiesta, and the lead image is a hatchback model clad in “Outrageous Green”
It’s not all that different from the Hyundai Kona’s Lime Twist color:
Very true. I do like the Kona in that color.
My Saab…
I love seeing the vintage license plates and how has this car not turned into a pile of rust by now!? This is a great find you have here and I love the color.
The plates are a nice detail. The ‘Yours to Discover’ tagline was first used on Ontario plates in 1982. The very successful advertising campaign targeted border states.
My girlfriend had this one (german version) in red in the early 90s. I remember very low consumption and anemic power, but once it ran it was unbelievably economical. We could go from Frankfurt to Paris (~370mls) for mere buttons. Nontheless I didn’t like this car . I could not stand this Diesel smell everywhere. I always had the feeling that I had to shower for hours to get rid of Diesel scent.
Till this day I back off from anything Diesel.
When you said alternative energy oil burner I expected to see a “Biodiesel” bumper sticker. That was very much a thing around here for awhile.
It appears Humberview Volkswagen is right next door to Audi Queensway. These are situated on the north side of a street in the west end of Toronto called ‘the Queensway’. Just across the street used to be a dealership called Courtesy Chev-Olds. Some other dealer is there now. A large shopping mall, “Sherway Gardens”, is not far away.
I am familiar with a dealer that used to be located a bit further north in town, that was called, “Humberview Chev-Olds-Cadillac.” That place is now closed, so perhaps the owners of that business name transferred it to the VW dealer. Perhaps they now own that VW dealer, I couldn’t say.
Updated – the Audi dealer is on the location of what used to be Courtesy Chev-Olds. Google has all the answers.
My parents had one – Dad bought it as a hedge against the possibility of a gas crisis – right when I got my license. With 48 hp on tap, I learned that quick reflexes can beat greater power in stoplight drags.
It was a great car. Fun to drive, solidly built. Loved it.
My sister and BIL bought a used 81 early in their marriage. It got a legit 50 mpg but was really slow, and strong headwinds on a highway gave it problems. They replaced it with a new Golf diesel in 86, which was more powerful but “only” got 45 mpg for them.
Mrs JPC had an uncle who bought one of the first ones and drove it until he died a few years ago. He was an engineer who had a daily commute from the suburban east side of Indianapolis to the suburban west side, a good solid 50-75 miles per day. Both car and man treated each other well.
In many parts of the world, it would mean that one had a disturbing cognitive deficit if one did not remember when diesels were a thing, as it was in all likelihood the motive power behind not just one’s own conveyance that very day but also the first, second and third best-sellers in one’s entire country.
The whole alt-energy craze pretty much blew past Oz, a few earnest VW van spaceys smoking the neighborhood with fish-and-chip pongs before breaking down with another clogging notwithstanding. Ancient Golfs did have a mild price spike, before the remorseful buyers realized the whole life-is-the-journey thing was real, that is, that most journeys might indeed take their lifetimes.
I had a number of first generation Rabbit Diesel cars. I never thought they were excessively slow. The motor may have had 48 hp, but the torque came on early. While it was slow, it had no problem keeping up with traffic.
Driving one today would probably be a different experience. Cars have become a lot better and the fuel consumption of my 2018 Golf (gasoline) isn’t much worse than the 48 hp diesel.
I worked@VW Westmoreland & built the Rabbit&Truck…i bought one of the first Alpha project diesel trucks we made & drove it till it died@200K…working on restoring an 82 truck now& looking forward to inexpensive transport…Great story!
Great story about our vehicles
I think this Rabbit is yellow, not lime green, because I had a 75 Rabbit (first year) in that same color. It was a 2-door gas-powered one, built in Germany before the Westmoreland, PA started cranking out Rabbits in the 79 model year. IIRC the first diesels from the PA plant were introduced in the 80 model year.
Those rusted and discolored steel wheels, especially in front, look very familiar!
“I think this Rabbit is yellow, …”
You are right. They called it Brilliant Yellow. Code L11C.
Probably about 10 years ago, while, searching for parts for my F100, I met a guy who had several of these. There was at least one in running condition because it was his driver, and a few organ donors around the yard in various states of disassembly.
Part of his garage was full of vessels and chemicals used to synthesize biodiesel from waste vegetable oil. He claimed that he got 40 to 50 mph and that the engines lasted a long time. Here in CT, though, oxidation is an implacable foe.
This was toward the end of the home-brewed fuel trend, which seems to be over as far as I can tell. I meant to ask him what he did with all the glycerol because his skin wasn’t very smooth.
As a long time VW Air Cooled Journeyman Mechanic I tried to ignore the new water cooled Rabbits when they arrived in 1975.
As it turned out they were in fact pretty darn good little cars designed and built with similar long life, low cost maintenance built right in .
The Diesels were a bodge job from the beginning, being essentially converted gasoline engines, when new many (? most?) made it about 50,000 miles before the diesel engine blew, the gassers kept right on running .
These A1 Diesels are now serious cult cars, I still seem them around So. Cal. as daily drivers .
I see serious rust bubbles in the A-Pillar of this one, that’s troubling, I hope they fix it and keep driving it for decades to come .
-Nate
I lived in Toronto in early 1980s, I never recall there was such dealership in Toronto, plus the decal front and graphic shows it is not a 1980 style. And the car with rounds head lights lets me believe it is probably an imported from Europe
My sister bought a new 1980 or 1981 Rabbit Diesel. It was a beautiful copper color. She and I shared the driving for a four day drive out to Palo Alto from New Jersey in 1983 to get the car out there while she was going to school. I always remember that in Nevada, we were constantly having to downshift to get over the hills because the car had little power. Other than that, it was really car to drive.
These diesels were very coveted in those days because of the 1973 and 1980 oil embargoes, with people trading in one year old Sevilles for $5000 to get them. I tried to get one and was put on an endless waiting list. Flash forward to today with $60 per barrel oil and plenty of it, I can’t help but be amazed and thankful for the ingenuity
in causing this change. Not being able to get gas and waiting in 2 hour gas lines was no fun and that led to the VW Rabbit diesel being one of the hottest cars on the road at the time.
Alas, the diesel engine blew a few years later and my sister traded the car in.
Not a diesel but drove a near new ’75 gas model in the same great color when visiting my old college roommate in Boulder right after he bought one. I drove out in my 1 yr old SAAB 99 and while leagues apart the VW was really fun to drive, well designed and space efficient. I was very impressed. Wasn’t too long though that he began having problems with it, too bad it didn’t live up to its potential, I really liked it. He went on to a Scirocco a few years later that was equally problematic.
I had a 1980 “C” model Rabbit from 1987 to 1992. Last year for the original 1471cc diesel engine.
Like the Beetle that proceeded them, they suffered from thin sheet metal.
I had a tiny little paint chip on the A-pillar one time. Didn’t even take the primer off, just the paint. Within a couple of months, it had grown into a rust spot I could put my finger through that was about 2″ long. Sealed it up with RTV and never gave it a second thought.
They also tended to lose the glass out of the side mirrors. I remember mine fell off in “the big city” after I hit a small bump in the road. I think I eventually replaced the whole mirror, since I couldn’t get just the glass.
The cylinder head was the engine’s Achilles Heel.
The overhead cam acted directly on the valves, which had a “bucket” that sat on top of the spring assembly that’s what the cam rode on. I’ve been told Fiat is famous for using a similar valve train. If it were a gas engine, I might not have realized this issue, but because it’s a diesel and relies on those valves sealing the cylinder, the springs are stronger, and this caused the valve stems to ride harder against the guides. Eventually, my engine ran into a hard to start condition that puzzled me, but I seemed to get around it by spraying a little ether into the intake. Ended up in-framing the whole engine (as my lack of experience using ether broke all the piston rings), but once I got it back together, she was a good runner until the day I sold it (actually, it had always been a good running engine, until I started having a hard time starting it).
First tank I burned after that rebuild netted me 58 mpg. Best tank I ever had with that car. Overall, for the 5 years I owned it, I think I averaged about 48 mpg. Pretty nice in a time when the average car on the highway was getting around 1/2 that. I usually filled the 10-gallon tank about once or twice a month. Only one time did I ever have to fill it more than once a week (it was during a time when my commute expanded to driving about 93 miles, 2 times a week, in addition to the normal 40 miles round trip I was driving back and forth to work).
She was a good little car, and I drove it all over God’s green earth, but I really wanted a truck, so I eventually went car shopping again and got a nice little Mazda that replaced it.
Owned that truck for almost 21 years before I replaced it with the POS Ranger I have now.
A high school buddy drove one of these, and boy did it shake at idle, demonstrating why the fender-mounted antennas of the era were called “whip” antennas. That antenna whipped back and forth frantically as the engine danced under the hood.
Almost two decades later, my barber was babying one he intended to keep forever. By then diesel passenger cars were all but non-existent in the U.S., and he swore it was the best car ever made.
Fun fact? I have had Breaks&Scrap’em small engines that burned more oil than a diesel while running on gasoline. Gotta love aluminum bores. Great for mosquito control, however…
There’s a lot to love with the VW Rabbit/Golf, but a stinky smokey diesel isn’t one of them. I distrusted the engines and there were many other suitable cars providing equitable fuel savings.
I’ve got a bit of an offbeat story about Diesel Rabbits. Never drove one myself. But in the late 80s/early 90s I worked at a Hospital in Facilities. The Radiologist drove one. Not a Radiologist, THE RADIOLOGIST. His wife was the Department head of X-ray. Don’t know the income numbers, but between the two of them they weren’t exactly on food stamps
The Diesel Rabbit was beat up, dents, smoked a bit, never washed, visually at least, a real beater. And I knew he/they could have afforded something better. Flash forward to probably the late teens of this century. I see him at Home Depot. Driving it’s spiritual successor, a second generation Prius. Same condition, beat up, dents, bumper cover half hanging off, a beater.
Yeah, the Rabbit was long gone I’m sure, but what more fitting in appropriate condition to replace it, than a beater Prius. I guess he liked cheap to run cars and didn’t care what they looked like.
I introduced myself at the HD and while initially suspicious he was downright friendly and we had a long conversation after he figured out I was a sort of former coworker, not a disgruntled patient or the like, contrary to his reputation of being grumpy at the hospital.
I had an ’84 MK 1 diesel Rabbit for almost 20 years. Best mileage was 52MPG but you had to drive it gently. My ’00 TDI Beetle averages 40MPG but with noticeably more power.
My ’22 and ’24 manual Versa’s get 40 with a lot more power.
That’s the first car I rode in – well, a white 1980, but a Rabbit diesel. And it was replaced by another diesel: a Mercedes 300D – about equal in lack of power, not as miserly on fuel, but needed for the growing family. You’d expect it for the price, but there’s no comparison in quality between the two. The Rabbit could get over 50 MPG though, and while they only had it a few years (I don’t remember it), my Dad never said anything about problems. He wasn’t mechanically inclined, so anything problematic wouldn’t last long. It’s not a car I pine for, but they had some things going for them; I can see why some people love them and hold onto them. Also, unlike the Beetle, they’re comfortable, user-friendly, and safe enough that you could reasonably drive them today. Well, maybe not the diesel, unless you like people glued to your bumper. Hard to believe how bad that’s gotten, even on Montana highways.
A mechanic I subscribe to on YouTube, the 2StrokeTurbo channel, has a customer with a yellow diesel Mk I Rabbit just like this one. Original owner, daily driver, the car has something like 600,000 miles on it now. Always a good day when it comes in for maintenance and he posts a video about it.