Is it my part of the country, or are rabbits just rarer?

[fistfullofnails]

West Virginia here. Been looking for something to learn to mechanic on for the right price, but the only Rabbit I’ve come across, that’s a project and not a show car, is without title. I see plenty of Beetles around though. Do 70-80’s Rabbit’s just dissolve quicker than old 60-70’s Beetles haha.

[TDCTDI]

Welcome to The Samba!

Rabbits are rarer. Many more Beetles were produced & sold over the 40ish year production run than the 8-9 years (US availability) that the Rabbit was available.

Then take into consideration the fact that WV combats regular snowfalls with lots of salt...
_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[volksworld]

rust definitely wasnt kind to rabbits...and repair panels werent readily available...bad roads made the lower control mounts rip off the chassis(even on rot-free ones) and require welding , and reinforcement with a lower stress bar...on the german cars windshields constantly leaked and dripped on the fuse box which was an overly complicated nightmare internally whose pins burnt out cause they couldnt handle the amperage and required some circuits to be bypassed...as the shield filled the relays with water...US produced cars fared better as the windshield was glued in and they used a completely different style of fuse panel...fan circuits were equally bad and required completely re-wiring or the fan wouldnt come on and the engine would overheat...at least the mark 2 addressed and cured these issues ....rust caused the rear axle to rip out of my mk1 scirocco and that was 25 years ago...and as far as restoring one goes be aware that during the recession bosch discontinued virtually all their fuel injection parts for them and anything thats been sitting a long time with a tank full of bad gas will definitely need a few

[Butcher]

Don't forget the Cabriolet's were made till 93 for the US market and the Citi made till 2009 in South Africa.

The Rabbit did last a long time and there was not love affair that the Beetles have. The west coast is where you will find them. I daily drive a 81 pickup and my wife drive a 91 Cabriolet. The Cabriolet is in much better shape and gets a lot of thumbs up.

All cars east of the Rockies do not seem to last long.

[iomalley]

They are still around if you get into the 'scene' with FB pages and the like. I have no problem finding or selling parts in those circles.

I will say there are alot of younger 'kids' becoming the end for some mk1s, they think they're 'cool cars' while not seeming to be happy with the original engines in them, go to town cutting out stuff like motor mounts and rain trays, and when their engine swaps give them migranes, they give up and crush them. I've seen alot of them go that way...decent cars until they got ahold of them. I happened to get a 2 door Jetta GLI roller on a give up.

As mentioned, the US built rabbits typically didn't last because of the lack of front fender liners, where mud/salt would pack in against the A pillar and rot out. Having replaced alot of metal on these, even roof skins, VW didn't make them to last 35+ years.

BION, mk3s (93-99) are becoming even more rare than those mk1 rabbits/golfs/jettas because of the awful floor rotting problems they had.
_________________
SGS

[TheRustyRabbit]

I agree they are getting really rare.

First off they don't have "Collector" status that the aircooled VW's have, and that alone made them scares when the early 2000's arrived. The gas crunch of the early 2000's may have saved a large pile of diesel models from the scrap yards as it was a common thing to convert their tired motors over to run on veggie oil.
In NC you could find a decent 2 door runner for less than 1K up until around 2006. Then the prices went up, and interest went down. As stated by others, Modern "Modders" have no real intrest in these cars and set about to hack them up to stuff modern motors in them instead of enjoying them for what they were. Add to that that now nearly every one you find has been chopped up to lower it and make it nearly undrivable and you can see the future for these old cars is getting scary.
I still fix them up to stock or do 80's era upgrades to them so they can be used as daily drivers, but I see maybe 5 a year here in NC.

My daily driver is an 1980 VW Rabbit Pickup, and I use it for work, fun, and comminuting. It's "Upgrades" are limited. A 1.8L with G-grind cam from an 1985 Convertible and a 5-speed transmission from a 1987 Convertible. Both of these were simply to make it a better car at highway speeds. other than that, the fuel, suspension and interior are all stock.
I do plan on getting a second truck to have as a reserve in case this one is ever lost or wrecked, but if and when I build it up, it will be stock as well.
These were great cars, and I've been driving them since 1990 with only a year or two of that time having gone without one.

My advice? Find a clean west coast model and get it back to WV to hold on to forever! Oh... And please don't lower it! It's SOOOO played out.

[TDCTDI]

Then there was the “shaved bay” trend that totally fucked unknown numbers of decent cars.
_________________
Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.