How Many Of Us Owned Rabbits In Our Youth?

[Wrecked944]

Obviously a question inspired by the Beetle thread. The relationship between VW and Porsche ownership is, of course, natural. And I've stumbled upon more Porsche/VW owners than can be explained by random probability. So I'll gladly fess up...

1) First car was a 1975 Rabbit Diesel. White with a four speed (i.e. the White Rabbit). It had many weird electrical problems because of a leak under the antenna...so in the rain it would "magically" turn on the interior lights, headlights, stereo...very Christine-like. And true to form, the car never actually died. It became a planter in my best friend's front yard.

2) Green 1983 Rabbit Deisel. Much more luxurious and reliable than the '75. Also had less "character". Sadly, I managed to fly it upside down on a twisty mountain road when I was 19. The flight was awesome...the landing, however, exceeded the car's specs and it went to the junk yard. Apparently, I'd been driving a bit too fast (go figure, right?).

3) Another white Rabbit - this one a 1980 fuel injected model (Bosch k-Jetronic - just like my 911SC !!). This car also had electrical gremlins...but it was quick as hell. Very light weight...handled well in the twisties...unfortunately, it was 12 years old when I purchased it and the parts were weak. I snapped the front axle while drag racing at a stop light. Hmmm...driving too fast again...I see a pattern here...

Years later I test drove a few BMW's and didn't like them. Tried out a Porsche and said, "Hell yes. This is like my wabbit on steroids. Woo Hoo !" Never looked back.

[Saffs]

To you ROWers: a Rabbit is a VW Golf to the a lot of the world.... Quite a few quicker Euro "hot hatches" were K jet too - Fords, Peugeots, et al.

[Early_S_Man]

There were'nt any Rabbits or Golfs or any other kind of water-cooled abhorrent machine made by VW ... in my youth!!!

Times change ... but I don't have to like the changes!!!

[emcon5]

First car was 1980 Rabbit Custom, in a very manly shade of powder blue. More audio watts than worsepower.

Shares its FI system with my 911, Bosch CIS.

Tom

[pbs911]

When I was about 8, I built a hutch out of plywood and chicken wire for two black Dutch rabbits. Went on vacation and all of a sudden I had about 10 rabbits. Then soemone moved in down the street with a bunch of cats and . . . oh, sorry wrong type of rabbit.

[dtfastbear]

I always swore I'd keep driving volkswagens until I could afford Porsches!

1984 GTI (Van hit me head on and killed the car. I was fine.)
1984 Scirocco (with GTI wheels)
1986 GTI
1991 GTI 2.0L 16valve (what a car!)

Then I went to the dark side and drove SUV's for a few years.

I really miss the GTI's. Every time I pull on to the autocross course I miss my GTI. Then I wake up and realize I'm driving a freakin Carrera and I'm over it!

Dean

[Superman]

I've had a '75 a '79 and an '84. My favorite by far was the '79. If I still had it, it would wear numbers and a fire extinguisher today.

[FrdzRed]

I bought a GTI brand new in '83. I think I spent more on alternators than I did on gas. I eventually dumped a 2.0 liter crate motor with a "N" grind cam, Euro exhaust manifold, Techtonics downpipe and cat back exhaust. That doesn't include all the Nuespeed equipment I installed. Man that car could tear up the road. One day I figured I'd outgrown the car and decided to buy a Porsche (did I hear someone say "midlife crisis").

[BierHunter]

My first car was a '76 Scirocco. I helped rebuild it from a couple of wrecked ones in '82. That's when I fell in love with german cars. Then I discovered what a 911 was. Of course this was on a young Airman's pay in the USAF ($650 a month then). I finally got my 911 two years ago.

[john70t]

No...don't say the 87 Golf word. It's finally gone (thank god). When I bought it 4 years previously it was near perfect....then...

1. In 3 days bird do went through 3 layers of fresh polymer from an orange bottle "once a year car polish" to the primer underneath.

2. Door dinged twice by Yuppie (ughum....um) lady in a shopping hurry. -once arriving-once leaving. Big dents.

3. Window smashed cheap radio gone on busy street daytime.

4. Hit on the bay bridge by semi who misjudged his distance or just plain didn't like small cars.

5. Fuel pump relay went out. After shop replaced both pumps for $500 and several inoportune stalls later I found the problem. Grr.

6. Window smashed cheap radio gone in nice neighborhood. This time they mangled to trim and shorted out much of the dashboard (practice makes perfect).

7. Heater core popped like a big hot water balloon inside the cab. It had had a cooling problem that didn't want to be fixed for a long time, and then I found out why.

It barely passed smog and a tune up and cat later still didn't change it although the compression was good. Playing with the mixture didn't change the duty cycle so it probably had a bad computer as well-and the thing that made the computer go bad.

Its gone! It's finally gone!!

[k9handler]

Had one when I was about 14...named it RC.
Then we ate it...tasted like chicken.

[Bill Douglas]

My ex girlfriends mum lived in Osnabruck Germaqny and she had a GT1. That was really handy to have free use of a fast car for months on end

[ChrisBennet]

Janus and I were talking about this. I really loved my '84 Rabbit GTI. It was a blast on the off ramps, AC worked great, my friend and I used it as a pickup to haul lots of plywood and sheetrock on it's roof. (9 sheets of 5/8" fireboard once!) and it was just unstoppable in the snow. The car is long gone but I use the roof racks on my 911.
-Chris

[GIBSON]

I'm in the same age group as Warren and there were no water-cooled VW's in my youth. I did have a VW watercooled period however. For a short time I worked for a VW performance company where we cast our own 4 cylinder VW cylinder heads.
We built a lot of motors, some over 200hp. I had an 87 16V GTI which was a good runner and fun to drive. Somebody gave me a diesel pick-up which I restored and drove for years. It was a good parts truck and got 40mpg. Rust was it's biggest enemy.

[Ted Stringer]

I learned to drive on a '79 VW Dasher Diesel Wagon that was down a few points on the compression. It made for some interesting moments. Liked the car so much that I went and found an '80 Diesel that I am restoring.

They didn't have much horsepower, but you didn't have to slow down much for the corners.

[dberkstr]

1) 65 VW beetle--used and abused--great stumpjumper

2) 71 Super Beetle--new, I wrecked, traded on a

3) 72 Super Beetle--kept 5 years till I got my

4) 76 Rabbit--fun car, turned a basic into a custom, traded it for a

5) 81 VW Rabbit--most expensive economy car I ever owned. Still, it hauled a LOT of stuff.

6,7) American junk, till I bought my

8) 87 Camry, absolutely the best car I ever had.

9) '83 Porsche 944. Still exploring this car's potential.

[Scott S]

My Dad went to Europe to get an Audi in 1984 - I was 15. While on his trip he called and said he found a sporty looking 1978 "golf" (rabbit) that was a light metallic green for 3500 usd. He said it looked brand new (50k kilo's). I had been looking for a Rabbit or Scirocco for my first car, but everything in my price range was junk and my folks wouldnt allow me to buy them.
Dad lent me 1000.00. Both cars showed up about a month later. To my surprise it had a four headlamp grill, and some funny mounts I had never seen before that were exposed when the US bumpers were put on. It had no badges and "sport" seats that looked to be original, 13" alloy wheels, a deep "chin" spoiler and smaller sway bars. It also seemed to have a bit more kick than any of the other rabbits I had test driven and had no problem keeping up with the new ultra cool Rabbit GTI's.
It wasn't until a year later when we were having some work done on it by a "German" German car mechanic that he pointed out what the car was. I had one of the original pre-US issue GTI's. The funny mounts on the body were the side hardwear for the plastic covered "euro" bumpers. We quickly ordered aftermarket replacement bumpers and ditched the BBS "GTI style" front spoiler I had put on and re-installed the two piece duck bill. The only cometic change I made was to install the 83-84 14" GTI wheels.
As of last Christmas, the remains of the car still sat in a junkyard outside of Durango, CO - in 1991 I lost a wheel in a street solo II and put it on it's side in a ditch.

I bought an 85 GTI to replace it - but it was nowhere near as cool.

-Scott S in CO

[Chris Bunker]

Oh man, did I ever have the most styling 1980 deisel rabbit on the planet! At least thats what I thought back in 1986 during my sophmore year at school.
She was that lovely beige color. But......I did my best to improve her a bit.
I installed a set of brown cloth sport seats from an Audi 5000 (junk yard), a three spoke steering wheel from a Scirocco, along with a set of Scirocco alloys I bummed off a Fraternity brother whose VW was literally rotting in our parking lot. She wore Vredestein (sp?) sprint steels in the winter, and P7s in the summer. In the interest of improving upon VW's already sleak lines I put on a Kamei front spoiler that prompty got ripped off that winter while doing pizza delivery duty for Dominos. I also had swaybars front and rear that I put on.
She wasn't fast in a straight line, but man could she corner.

I was too poor to afford proper repairs so I can remember one round trip from Worcester, MA up to Burlington, VT I had to make with ear plugs because the exhaust pipe had fallen off. A deisel wide open is not quiet.

In fact the first time I met my girl friends parents (now my wife), they were waiting for me in her room at school to go to dinner. Her Dad heard me coming in the Rabbit with the wide open pipe from blocks away. He said "I hope thats not him coming is it?"
Well, they musta liked me fine since they let me marry her.

One cool thing about the Rabbit is that once you got it started, you could disconnect the battery and it would still run. An important thing to know when you have a dead battery and no money for a new one.

I finally parted ways with her in 1988 when the coolant tank burst and I over heated the motor on the MA pike. The head warped and I sold her to someone who had the time and money to put a fresh motor in, because I didn't then.

My first car

Chris Bunker
78 SC

At age 14 I was allowed to buy a '65 bug ($20) as we moved from the 'burbs to the country (serious sticks). I stripped the fenders and cut off the rear and made a makeshift buggy. Hilarious fun! Rolled it several times. Rode the roof like a bronco a few times (not too F'ing bright at that age). And terrorized the local woodchucks and farmers near by. Later, 'had an '85 diesel rabbit (inherited from mom and dad). 'Got with 90+k and gave to my sister with 134k, and she kept it to over 150K. Mom and Dad also had a dub microbus pop-top camper which we camped cross-country a bunch of times. Dub cars are all right, but p-cars rule.

[Roland Kunz]

Hello

I own and drive a MK II GT Special ( german made ). It has ABS, AC, Recaros, BBS from the factory and I added a trailer hook
Now with 220 000 kmīs on the odo it starts to use a bit oil between the oilchanges. Also I have the problem with the leaking heat exchanger. Have to refill water every 4-5th tankstop now thats every 2000 kmīs.

Grüsse