VW Phases Out Production of Golf MK2, Successor To Original Golf MK1 and Known as Rabbit

By Marc Stern

Marc Stern

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1 1,398 views November 16, 2009

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After receiving the okay to test drive cars from my managing editor about 35 years ago, the very first car to come pass through the driveway was a 1974 VW Rabbit, the successor to the original VW entry in the U.S., the Beetle.

What a difference a model makes. The Rabbit was front-drive with a transversely mounted four that mated to a somewhat cranky four-speed stick transaxle a fifth speed was added later to give you an overdrive. This model, known in Germany as the Golf Mk I, was a sea change from the original VW.

The original Beetle was your prototypical funky import. Driven by a 39-horsepower (later upped to 44), air-cooled four, the rear-mounted engine (what a surprise when you opened the trunk), was mated to a very cranky four-speed manual that drove the rear wheels.

This was not a vehicle in which you expected to set any land speed records. It was more the vehicle that you sat and drove as you were passed by kids on bikes, three-year-olds on trikes and old milk trucks in reverse.

They were reliable and just seemed to run and run, no matter what you did to them or how you abused them, short of dumping sugar into the gas tank, that is. Indeed, one of them that is particularly memorable is a 1966 ragtop that had about a billion miles on the clock (actually more than 186,000 miles) and which had been driven by so many drivers that the clutch wasn't even necessary. You could start and just go through the gears without even lifting your left foot. Of course, wanting to do the car justice, we did just that to make sure the transmission didn't get any more slippery.

The things that struck you most about that Beetle were just how close you were the to windshield actually close doesn't do it justice, at all. It was more like you and the windshield were one unit and the glass was a convenience that kept the rain off your face. The wiper blades, powered by the Beetle's hydraulic system, were gems because they streaked as much as they worked, which is to say when you floored it uphill in a rainstorm, the wipers sort of dangled wherever they happened to be and stopped, until you were able to back off the gas and the hydraulic system worked again.

Still, although it was quirky and the front bucket seat was about as comfortable as riding on a sponge, it was still fun to drive.

Its replacement, the Rabbit, was also fun to drive, it not more frustrating, at times. Those times happened to be when you tried the diesel option. Indeed, that was exactly the first VW Rabbit that appeared in the driveway in 1974.

It had the usual Rabbit amenities basic radio, wipers, crank windows, a ragtop (because it was a convertible) front-drive transaxle and, if memory serves, about a 1.6-liter regularly aspirated four-cylinder diesel.

That powertrain had a reputation for a certain amount of, how shall we put this, rather laid-back performance and this one was certainly in that school. Winding it all the way up to the redline in first, you hit the rolling speed of about 12 mph and when you crunched (the shift gate wasn't really a shift gate at all, more of a suggestion, really) into second, the Rabbit just surged ahead to the redline and all of about 22 mph, third was equally joyous as you kept your foot into the accelerator and moved the diesel up to about 35 mph and when you hit fourth, things really moved out as you topped out at about 42 mph.

This was not the vehicle that you ever would get a speeding ticket in. In fact, it was more likely to be tagged for hindering traffic, but who could argue with 50-plus mpg, although, admittedly in 1974 diesel stations were few and far between.