Used Car of the Day: 1982 Volkswagen Rabbit Pickup

I owned a '77 Rabbit hatchback. Still built in Germany, black interior with brown vinyl. A nice Germanic interior, unlike the Fisher-Price plastic interiors of the PA built cars. But... still one of the worst cars ever foisted on the American public. EBFlex would have had a field day and he'd be worshiping at the altar of Henry Ford if he'd owned a water cooled VW of that generation. The American Rabbits were no better and added early Buick handling qualities to the otherwise miserable platform. The only positive was space utilization, 4 people could fit in a Rabbit without amputation, but the pick-up negated that by shrinking the cab and putting the length into the bed. But then not bolstering the drivetrain and suspension to handle the bed capacity. A toyota or Datsun pick up of this era was a much better choice, perhaps a bit cruder but still running today compared to this turd. These have a bit of a cult following, unlike the hatchback versions, for the life of me I cannot understand why.

This brings back some memories! My dad was into diesel cars in the 80s and bought a brand new 1980 diesel Volkswagen Dasher (manual transmission) station wagon when I was 10 or 11. It was our primary family transportation through the 1980s. Somehow we squeezed a family of 9 into it, even for some family vacations. The older children liked to take turns sitting between the front bucket seats where we were allowed to shift gears when my dad pressed the clutch. The remaining six kids ended up in the back seat or the cargo area. That diesel engine was stinky and loud and so slow. I'm sure it took 30 seconds to get up to highway speeds. It had some reliability issues early on but after the first 2 or 3 years it ran really well. When my dad sold the Dasher it had 250,000 miles on it. One of my uncle's farm workers bought it and put more miles on it. It also had a great stereo. My mom used to go out into the Dasher parked in the driveway just listen to her favorite albums on cassette. I'd be happy driving one now if I knew someone who could keep it running. I think it averaged over 40 mpg.