sebb@pyuxss.UUCP (01/31/84)
Did everyone hear that the VW Rabbit is going the way of the Beetle? Seems VW sales have been steadily dropping and they're going back to the drawing board to design a new winner. It will be bigger and have more power. And I really like the GTI. Oh well, maybe they'll come out with another high-preformance sedan that's a little cheaper than the Scirocco. Sharon Badian
guy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris) (02/02/84)
> Did everyone hear that the VW Rabbit is going the way > of the Beetle? Seems VW sales have been steadily dropping and > they're going back to the drawing board to design a new winner. > It will be bigger and have more power. And I really like the > GTI. Oh well, maybe they'll come out with another high-preformance > sedan that's a little cheaper than the Scirocco. According to the article I read in the Washington Post, they were dropping the Rabbit in favor of a car which was "larger, roomier, and more economical". The article also said, though, that one auto industry analyst said that the car "didn't look much different from the Rabbit" and that this might hurt it. They said it would start being made in the 1985 model year, i.e. at the end of 1984. In late 1983, VW announced the "Golf II". The "Golf" is the Eastern Hemisphere market name for the VW Type 17, known as the "Rabbit" in the US and Canada and as the "Caribe" elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. The "Golf II" is a bit larger and roomier than the "Golf I" (our current Rabbit), and has less aerodynamic drag and is, as such, more economical. Furthermore, it doesn't look too different from the current Golf, and people have said that VW blew $7M on doing a car that wouldn't look different enough to excite sales. It was also mentioned that this car would be introduced into the US in late 1984, and might be called the "Golf" or, at least, something other than "Rabbit" due to the Rabbit name not having good connotations anymore... Draw your own conclusions, but I suspect VW is pulling the wool over the press's eyes. I'd be willing to bet that this wonderful new car is, indeed, the Golf II, and will be called something other than "Rabbit" - they did the same thing with the Passat III, renaming it from "Dasher" to "Quantum" in the US/Canada market. By the way, the Golf II has a new model, designed, I suspect, for people trading down from bigger cars for fuel economy reasons. It has a carbureted version of the 1.8 litre engine that appears in injected form in the GTI (in European trim, it has the same 90 HP as the US-spec GTI engine). This model has power steering, power windows, power door locks, etc., etc.. If they are indeed planning to introduce the Golf II as an !all-new! car, I suspect this model may play a part; I also suspect the new engine may be common or even standard in all non-souped-up 4-cylinder VW/Audi products sold in the US. There is also a new Scirocco - the Scirocco 16V. This has a VW/Audi designed twin-cam head, and puts out about *140 HP* in European trim. If it loses the 20 HP that is frequently spoken of as standard for power loss in federalization, that leaves it with a "puny" 120 HP, which is not bad at all. The Golf II GTI also now has 4-wheel disk brakes, and will probably get a 16V version at some point. Let's hope *that* one makes it over here with as much of its power intact as possible. Guy Harris {seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guy
wetcw@pyuxa.UUCP (T C Wheeler) (02/02/84)
BRING BACK THE PRE 1975 BUG!!! I went through 3 of the little devils. Sure enjoyed those beasties for getting around locally. They took a lot of abuse but kept on tickin. I could at least fix-em myself. T. C. Wheeler
lincoln@eosp1.UUCP (Dick Lincoln) (02/03/84)
<< BRING BACK THE PRE 1975 BUG!!! I went through 3 of the little << devils. Sure enjoyed those beasties for getting around locally. << They took a lot of abuse but kept on tickin. I could at least << fix-em myself. << T. C. Wheeler Actually the 1975 version had become rather complicated with many carburetor "gimmicks", exhaust feedbacks, etc. to make the pollution standards. It was pretty hard to adjust the carb without a factory machine. My first was a '59 - went 200Kmiles on the original engine, 2nd clutch, 3 brakes, 3 sets of tires, 1 paint job. You could tune that in your sleep (a 6 volt bulb and two clip-wires was good enough to time it). Now that was indestructable! (Not quite, because it died when some jerk rear-ended me and wiped it out.)
jeffm@hammer.UUCP (Jeff McMeekin) (02/07/84)
What looks like a Rabbit, and uses many existing Rabbit components? Answer: the new Rabbit. It's rather odd to hear on the news (I heard it on a couple of radio news spots as well as on TV news) that the Rabbit is being discontinued, because its such non-news. Volkswagen has made no secret that they've been working on a replacement for some years now, and all the major car magazines have had at least brief writeups of the new car (which is now available in Europe and expected here late this year or early next year). So what's the big deal? I figure it's all marketing hype. The bottom fell out of VW's market starting in 1980 as consumers turned off to the "Americanized Rabbit". And despite the changes in '83 the only bright spot in sales is the GTI. So marketing figures, let's make a big splash and announce the death of the Rabbit. What I think they really mean is the death of the "Rabbit" name in an effort to re-Germanize the cars. Who knows, maybe they'll call it the Golf.