You don't have to be Elmer Fudd to like hunting rabbits, and today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe beige bunny seems worthy of the chase. But will its price make you go hu-hu-hu-hu-hu-hu-hu-hu?
In an odd confluence of forces of nature, when VW made the switch from air-cooling for their engines to H2O, they chose to name the new wetter cars after winds. Passat (which sounds like a fart), Scirocco, and Golf shared not only breeze-based baptismals, but sharp-creased body styling penned by the house of Giugiaro. The smallest of the three - and nominal replacement of the long-serving and iconic Type 1- was the Golf. That car was named for the Gulf Stream, the wind that sends America's collective body odor Europe's way, possibly explaining the British's stiff upper lips.
Europe returned the favor by sending us the Golf, and renaming it the Rabbit. The Passat also suffered an identity switch mid-Atlantic, losing its wind and gaining some dash in the process. The Scirocco, however, was apparently deemed acceptable in keeping its Europe honorific, and appeared in U.S. VW dealers un-rechristened.
Today's 1983 Golf Rabbit comes not like Bugs Bunny as a gray hare, but in a shade of beige that you might imagine Bugs would appear should a pepper-induced sneeze blow all his fur off, cartoon style. The paint on this Rabbit looks to be in excellent shape despite its kind of creepy flesh-tone color. That's probably due to the car having only 40,000 on its clock, or so claims the seller. He also notes the Ronal Turbo alloys, lowered suspension and adjustable coil-overs that lend a little visual interest to the car, somewhat balancing all the beige. Euro bumpers, GTI side stripes and a snow plow up front round out the visual panoply of changes. This being a Westmoreland-built car it suffers both the rectangular headlight nose, and the color-keyed interior.
That interior is also beige, although it looks from the lone picture as though sun and time have transformed it into a Rubik's Cube of the color, as many of the panels and parts are no longer exactly PMS 871. Spicing things up is a Momo wheel to lay your hands upon, and the goofiest shifter. . . In the wooooorld.
The seller says that colonoscope of a shift lever is a quick single screw to remove, and unfortunately, with only the 1.7-litre carb'd four under the hood, this Rabbit won't be quite as quick. Contemporary tests pegged zero to sixty times for this 65-horse engine and its rubbery manual transmission was a not so dynamic duo-worthy 13 seconds. The nice thing about these cars is that you can drop damn near any iteration of the ubiquitous VW four under its hood and it'll fit without complaint or KY. That makes this one slow bunny that might eventually be made hare raising.
However, to do that, someone's going to have to come up with the seller's asking price, which, here in the VW Vortex ad, is $6,000. What do you think of that price, does that make this Rabbit the hair of the dog, or just a hare that's a dog?
You decide!
VW Vortex Forums or go here if the ad disappears.
Help me out with NPOCP. Click here to send a me a tip, and remember to include your commenter handle.