Based on the side markers and headlights, it is a 1980 - made at VW Westmoreland here on SW Pennsylvania . My Mom worked at the plant and there is a 50 percent chance that she started that car for the first time when in was on the line (depending on which shift the car was built). Nice to see it still on the road.

That car should be restored, rust should not be allowed to destroy such a nice example, they are rare 👍

My dad had a VW Diesel Rabbit from the 70s. He lived in the mountains of Colorado so he added a turbo to it to be able to go up and down the mountain passes. He had over 300,000 miles on it and STILL sold it to another VW enthusiasts.

Love the VW 1.5 diesels. We still, amazingly, have a few of these around town up here in the northwest.

The Diesel version of the first generation is also pretty rare here in Germany now. The first generation of the rabbit (which is called Golf originally) is nearly undestroyable and very practical. Back in the 80´s in such a car I did my driver's license. These Diesel Golfs were officially used by the German postal office, so i bought them on auctions and sell them later. The models for the postal office had no glove box, no rear seats, reinforced suspension struts and a weird seat belt which releases itself if you open the door. And to anyone how says that this car is slow: compare it with a Mercedes Benz 200D (W115).

What a surprise! My first foreigner was from Oregon and my first highschool in the States started with my German mom's just the same yellow diesel rabbit. It was two doors, but pretty exactly same. Daily use stick shift diesel. I also owned Golf variant generation three till about four years ago. Really loved the symple one so much. Many thanks for sharing this video.

Great maintenance makes great cars, your part of the reason why this car is in good loving condition

I love the License plate. MPG 711. A little optimistic on its mileage figures though (yes I know its just a random issued plate)

The body style is like my 78 4 speed gas model. My car had round headlights. My red 2 door Rabbit was my first new car. It was pretty quick and gave me 45 mpg on the highway.

LOVING all of the videos your taking the time to put out recently! Please keep them coming. Double thumbs up!

Mum had a 77 Rabbit, in this color but was a 2 door and also a 4 speed. It had 17k original miles on it when it went to the junkyard. It sat for about 15 years in an old, leaky garage on the muddy, gravel floor and just turned to junk. Learned to drive on it at 10 years old. Miss and love that old car. Great memories. Thank you for sharing this video!

My first new car was a 1977 VW Rabbit (gasoline); it was a clean enough burning engine that the 1977 models were not equipped with catalytic converters, and so my VW could take any kind of gasoline. It was a fantastic car, and I put 180,000 miles on it before I got rid of it in the early 1980's... I wish I still had it...

I learned to drive on the farm in a nearly identical yellow 1979 Rabbit. Great car with great memories. Black vinyl seats that will melt your skin on a hot day, the familiar weird fuel filler cap, everything but marker lights and square headlights is the same. I never realized that I missed that car until this moment. Thanks for posting this.

Daily Driven Diesels 🤔 that doesn’t sound like a bad KZfaq channel

this is cool as hell i remember as a kid seeing these in monterrey mexico running around town crazy looking little cars love them, and love all old classics

Nice car. I live in aloha and have several rabbits and rabbit pickups. All diesel... Love them. Thanks for the videos.

You just grew in coolness. I've had 4 of these things and they're awesome.

I had a mk1 turbo diesel Golf (Rabbit) and I enjoyed it a lot... till a dog crossing the road made me chose the ditch over the black stuff... a mk2 followed it, a lowly 1.6 d which was the most useful car I’ve ever owned... a real travel machine!

I bought a new Diesel Rabbit I think it was a 1978, I drove that car many thousand of miles and did all of the work on it myself including replacing the head gasket, clutch and many sets of front bake pads and many other parts, I also bought a well used Diesel Rabbit and fixed it up and drove it thousands of miles. In those days diesel fuel was cheaper than gasoline and I got 50 + mpg , I always liked the marble in a tin can sound of the motor.

Love it! I have an '84 Rabbit diesel with 279,000 miles, an '81 Rabbit diesel pickup with only 122,000 miles, and 2 early '80s Mercedes 300Ds. Yes, I'm a diesel-holic. Parts are easy to find for all of them. Thanks.

I still have my 1981 Rabbit Diesel. My parents bought it new in 81. It has around 320K miles on it, and it was my college car. I hope to some day restore it.

Still driving an 1.5 diesel here in Germany. Same engine, but other chassis. VW Caddy 14d. So the "pickup" caddy. Awesome car, got it for around 2000 Euros with a lot of rust, but they are rather rare nowadays and got extremely cheap maintenance costs. I just love it. I drive around with 4-6 Liters / 100km. Got 360.000kms on the clock. Cheers!

I missed my 76 Rabbit, my college car, same Rally Yellow color.

Wish I still had mine!! Had an "78 L with a 4-speed. Would get 43 MPG around town with the A/C on.

Nice little car, the 5dr (4 doors + rear hatch) seem quite rare now, but they are called the VW Golf (that been a mk1 model) hear in the UK and Europe, with the convertible (soft top) been called Clipper apart from the GTI version. There quite sort after and worth a nice amount here now.

Wow!😃 Looks exactly like MY '79 Diesel Rabbit!👍

This brings back memories. My first car was an 82 diesel Rabbit 2 door with sunroof. Otherwise the same as the car in your garage. That was a great car. It was like a little tank. It has so much ground clearance you could drive over curbs (slowly) and even take it off road. I would probably still have that car, but it was t-boned when the other guy ran a stop sign. Car was hit at well over 30 mph, and was totaled, but I walked away without a scratch. Who needs 10 air bags and seat belts with explosive charges?

Me and especially my dad have a sweet spot for these, because his first own car was a 1.5 Diesel 3 door MK1 Golf and as a matter of fact we still own it, but is a non runner, but we do have the parts to get it running again. My first experience with one of these was when my dad bought a 5 door one which was the same shade of yellow as the Rabbit in the video, but I think it was the facelifted model with the new dashboard and taillights. These cars were built like tanks!

I owned a 1978 Rabbit Diesel that I bought brand new. It cost $5500 and that was pretty expensive back then. It had a staggering 48 horsepower. Awesome little car that got over 50MPG on the highway.

Super cool! Brings back memories of the back street racing in wpg. There was a small cult following of rabbits, gas though.

I had one just like this. I donated it to the mission in Grants Pass in the late nineties.

in 1981 I worked with a guy who drove a Volkswagen Rabbit diesel that got 55 mile per a gallon. It's kind of surprising that 41 years later most cars still struggle to get 25 or 30 MPG

just got a 1981 vw rabbit up in ohio... runs, but interior needs restored and rust galore. Loved seeing on in a decent shape.

I bought one of those rabbit diesels in 1990 or 91 for $75. Amazing gas mileage I would drive all week on two or three dollars. Only problem was starting that thing in a cold-weather state.

This rabbit is a 1980 probably built in 79 , and is also known as an EARLY westy car, it was built in PA but still featured the side markers and short taillights. prior to 80 all the diesels were ROUND headlights and were built in Germany, the early westy is a very rare version and also very sought after as they are extremely hard to find in good condition. In 1981 they "Americanized" the rabbit giving it bigger taillights, different front fenders and grille.

My first car was a VW Rabbit Diesel LS. It had the nice leather-like vinyl seats, padded dash, remote mirrors, wide tail lights, etc. It was gutless wimp, 54 hp, and I could really tell the difference just on turning off the A/C, a boost of power that might allow a very slow, long, scary passing maneuver. About 45mpg would really drop with just a ski rack on top, to about 35. The Turbo Diesel Jetta was a great improvement at 90 hp! The car was rather poorly made, as was the Jetta, requiring frequent servicing. The oil pan is really low and subject to rock damage, and gravel roads can cause a rock to go into the timing belt. That ruins the engine as valves are interference type. The heads get really hot, the car overheats on hills in the summer, and blown head gaskets are common. I am so happy to never own such a car again! It left my GF stranded on a hill (blown head gasket) and me stranded in the mountains (blown head gasket). I'm surprised emissions regs are so lackluster in such a liberal city.

THATS MY RABBIT DIESEL!!! I had that yellow, but it was a two door....and had it had black bumpers, not chrome, black wheels, put on nice DARK black tint to. Mine didn't have that terrible buzzer, It was much more subtle,or maybe it was wearing out:) Loved waiting for the glow plugs to get warm before starting. It also had a 3 band red racing running from the front panel along the bottom to the rear side panel, then it kicked up to the top of the hatch. Made it look fast:) I got 53mpg on the highway at 80mph!! And over 45 in the city, without trying. I never recall having a fuel filter to replace. Mine are an 1983. Maybe it was not on that year?? Loved to leave people in huge black clouds of black smoke at stop lights. Especially when they beeped at me, so I pissed them off and gave them a cloud for being rude! Man I miss that car!! And recall putting in it 20W 50 oil!!! Those were the days.

I had one of those. 1.5d. Slow and noisy but very reliable engine and very fuel efficient. I also had one with a 1.6TD. Got stopped by the police while driving 160km/h... he asked if it was a GTI :D Luckily he got a call so that saved me a ticket and my driving license. To bad these cars rust very fast.

I owned 2. The 1st was a newer body on one of the 1st diesels built. Zillion miles on the engine, had to roll it off to start it having almost no compression. Had the cam baffle to keep the oil draining back into the crankcase instead of being blown into the intake with all the blowby. If you ran it over 45 mpoh it'd run away but it still got 45 mpg. 10 gallons of fuel equaled 450 miles every time. Sweet cars.

🤩the collection of vehicles are amazing

My sister used to drive an '85 Jetta diesel. Non-turbo. We live at 6,500' elevation. Probably the slowest car I've ever been in. It drove nice though and was fairly reliable, not Japanese reliable, but reliable enough.

That's my old Honda Civic! Glad to see it's in good hands :)

not often seen on the roads even here in Europe now (where we call it a 'Golf') neat car

Fun interesting stuff-thanks for the post from Providence, Rhode Island.

My father had a diesel MK1 Golf like that (the '80 facelift version). I remember many many trips on that car. The diesel engine was quite popular here in Europe, the rare version was the automatic.

oh boy more of this Rabbit please! Love it

I love oregon cars i picked up both my 82 and 83 vw rabbit trucks from Portland

I really like the first generation Golf. So simple and easy to work on, yet fairly tough. I drove a diesel Jetta and it never let me down, though 0-60 could be timed with a calendar. Don't know if North America got the diesel Jetta.

I had a '90 2-door Jetta with a 1.6l NA indirect injection diesel w/ 5 spd. Only made about 52hp but got 41 mpg around town. Topped out at about 80-85, but took a while to get there. When it started running a little rough I always knew it was time to reach under the car and drain the water separator in the fuel line. Drove it for 9 yrs and 100k mi, and still sold it for about what I paid for it used.

VW diesels are amazing 😉. I have 1.9L 2003 212k on it, it’s just getting broke in. Tuned it with a kerma box runs with excellent acceleration! Wish I had one of the old VW pickups in a diesel that would be so awesome. I do 48mpg hwy and city combined, don’t plan on parting with my Jetta for years to come.

These are from before my time but my mom always told stories of her family owning one during the gas crisis. Awesome little car, never seen one myself.

I had a '78 diesel about 15 years ago. One of my favorite cars I've ever owned. I was living in CA, and CHP was cracking down hard on CARB violations. Anything not compliant under the hood got your car immediately impounded and crushed. The regulations didn't apply to diesel though... ;) Coppers pulled me over all the time, but I carried the title on me and pulled it out when they wanted to pop the hood. The cast iron block mates up nicely to the scirroco crossfire head. A Holly blowthrough carb and $100 worth of Saab junkyard turbo parts are good for just about 300hp. Only problem was I went with a mechanical controller and mounted it on the dash. Personally I only ever turned it up to 30psi for short pulls, but my brother in law borrowed it and decided to turn it all the way up and leave it there to smoke a Porsche on the 215. Pretty much everything melted right as he pulled back in my driveway. But it's still to this day my favorite car. I never really understood "ludicrous speed" until then.

Great car, i had a couple of Polo's a '78 gasoline and a mark II diesel. This model from late 70's will rust, the steel from the period was baaad. There is not many left today but if you advertise them in Germany they will go completely NUTS and pay fortunes for them. These cars are the heartblood in German car culture.

I live in Ireland. Mad for german cars. Have a 1980 mk1 golf (rabbit) 1.5 diesel 5 door in the exact same colour as that one!! Cant believe it!!! 😍

I have an 82 vw rabbit pickup and it runs and drives great here in Florida. Rust free but has some dents. I run 50 50 used transmission oil and diesel fuel and get an easy 35 mpg. Some pickup specific parts are tough to find though

My best friend has a 5-speed turbo diesel Caddy (Rabbit pickup), pretty quick, good on fuel, and rare! See it a lot in Wisconsin, but there's very few of any of the Rabbits!

middle of door rust is due to some support pad from the window winder mech, holds water that runs down the inside of a door

I daily an 84 diesel rabbit coupe. Not German built. Westmoreland with the square headlights. It's very clean for its age and has the original window sticker. I love it.

Back in the day I owned a 1980 VW rabbit -white with a red interior. Came with a primitive mechanical fuel injection system that was unreliable -on hot days in arizona it wouldn't start. Took it back to the dealership many times and they threw their hands up in the air without fixing it. Finally sold it. Today I drive a mk4 Golf GL automatic with 125k miles and love it.

My uncle has a 84 Rabbit Diesel with over 600 000 kilometers. It is such a cool car and going strong to this day with his grandson now daily driving it.

That license plate is pretty fitting too

That is a nice car, original a well kept. Nice!!!

Hi I got the same car same 1.5 Diesel I bought it 2nd hand at 170,000 km and drove it to 420,000 km same engine same motor head same fuel pump just replacing timing belt every 100,000 km motor oil and filters every 10,000 km nothing else. Gave it to a friend who drove 40,000 more km. Everything was falling into pieces except the engine. Motor oil use 1 liter / 10.000 km. I will never have such a rock solid engine any more. Jack from Brussels.

its a 1980 Westmoreland rabbit I used to work at a VW Porsche Audi dealership and I remember these as new the 78 and 79 rabbit diesels were German with a few westmorelands produced in late 79. these cars had no a/c and had to be shop installed and no cruise control except for VW aftermarket kits and most of them only came with am/fm ingelstadt radios

That’s really cool I daily a 86 GTI and it’s one of the best experiences, I’ve only seen one other mk2 I live in San Francisco

I owned 2 VW Rabbits 🐰! 1977 or 1978, 1979... 1 gas ⛽️ powered ones & 1 Diesel! Diesel was white & got 55mpg on Highway.. & the gas one was Yellow! Both were 4 doors.. I think.. it was a long time ago when I was in College 😊😊

I had a 2011 VW diesel that I sold back to them this past December on their buy-back program due to their scandal. I miss that car every day.

I used to work for a VW Dealership in the late ‘80s and these were very common. I remember working on these when they came in for service. As with all diesels back then they were very noisy and slow, but very reliable. The Rabbit (Golf in Europe) was very basic; simple stuff like a light for the glove box, a passenger side mirror or a rear wiper was all optional. Power steering or A/C etc. wasn’t even available I think, maybe only on US models. I would love to clean and buff the paint on this one.

It’s not a 1978 or 1979 model - it’s a 1980. You can tell by the side marker lights that this model was made at the Westmoreland PA factory, and they didn’t start manufacturing the diesel Rabbits there until January 1980 (although the factory began production in 1978, only gasoline-engined cars were made there until the diesel Rabbit was added in 1980 - until that time, all diesels were still coming from Germany). I went on a waiting list (remember those?!) for a new Rabbit diesel in Nov 1979, hoping to get one still made in Germany, but when they came to my turn the first week of Feb 1980, that truck brought the first delivery to the dealer of Westmoreland-produced diesel-powered Rabbits. I took delivery of my Lago Blue (think “Carolina Blue”) Rabbit C 4-door 4-speed manual on Feb 4 1980. It came with factory AC (not dealer-installed AC), which I believe had just become available on the diesels. Within a couple months, I had outfitted it with a set of Keystone alloy wheels with fat BF Goodrich Mark T/A radials, a Kamei (painted to match) front air dam, an Ansa free-flow stainless exhaust system, blackout tinted windows (no light-transmission restrictions back then), and a Sony AM/FM receiver with full-logic cassette deck running through a 250-watt amp to four 3-way speakers and topped that off with a 48” electric antenna. It was pretty cool for a first new car for 18-year-old me! With that Ansa exhaust system, it was pretty fast - even the dealer’s service manager was convinced I’d installed a turbocharger until he couldn’t find one on it.

Very cool, we have them in South Africa as well although they are becoming scarce. Lucky enough to have a 87 golf all original with the 1.6 carb engine here in Johannesburg

Nice car. I'm myself owner of a 1982 Golf mk 1, it has also the big Europe rearlights, with 1.5 gasoline engine.

Nice video oh you have an Renault 5 lecar from my country France lol

I worked @VW Westmoreland also and went thru the diesel experience too! Be careful bout the anti freeze you use as it can be a factor mit the aluminum head..

Love it!

I've had a 1978 4speed, a 1980 5speed, a 1982 5speed. the latter was assembled in pennsylvania and was less 'tight' than the other two. the 1980 got exactly 60mpg combined city/hwy, the latter two 25mpg.

So a little fun fact. Rabbits only came with that front end with a diesel in 1980. 79 the diesels were made in Germany still and had round headlights. I am a huge rabbit nerd who lives in Seattle and I own a 79 in the same Sun Brite yellow but with a gas motor. My best friend has a yellow 1980 diesel though! Doors seem to rust out before anything else. It is really apparent on the Pick Ups. And I am super surprised the OG 1.5 has made it this far. The heads are prone to cracking between the valves and blowing head gaskets and have smaller head bolts then the later 1.6s. What a peach.

the biggest issue with the early rabbit is that the fuse block goes bad internally which causes habboc of all the wiring. stuff works one day then not the next. and they are not available anymore for the 80 and below.

These were all over the place by me when I was a kid. They would do a ton of miles-300k was not unheard of but they had issues with rust as all cars from that era did. They were certainly much better than Japanese and American cars of that period in that regard. One issue I heard about regularly was the fuse box was in a bad spot that would take water on.

My dad had an 84 diesel rabbit and that thing got like 60 mpg! It also left a huge plume of smoke at every startup lol

Love the car. I would daily drive it too. In a world of everyone driving newer vehicle that all look the same. The older vehicle make you look unique.

Had 2 of them 1978 and 79 and both were rusted out and off the road by 1988 ( Minnesota) I have a 2003 Golf Diesel I bought new and have 266,000 now and still runs perfect 👌

You've got nice collection of Euro and Japanese cars there!👍🏻

I Remember these cars back in the 80's when I lived in Germany. These cars were some of the fastest cars on they streets

I just live next door in Idaho. We see some pretty cool old vehicles here too. They recently started using that liquid deicer crap on our roads here as well as salt, forever they used to use sand. These older vehicles are just not replaceable, none of today's vehicles are cool enough to look at. My older vehicle fleet is a 1988 Ford Bronco 2 Eddie Bauer 4x4, and a 1991 Ford Tempo GL 4 door.

i had one like that, a golf 1 diesel from the early 80s, never liked how it drove, sold it soon and never missed that thing. i know nostalgia, but when something is that annoying, i dont understand why people would be into it. i would not want that golf 1 back.

Friend had a diesel Escort, yep Ford used I think a Mazda Diesel engine, we really messed with him adding additional diesel fuel, he always bragged about the fuel mileage, we got him to over 100 mpg, then stopped adding fuel and his mileage fell down to around 50, it worried him to death! We all drove down to see KISS concert in Roanoke, I remember even over KISS I could hear that Mazda Diesel engine ringing in my ears.

I almost got one of these once. The guy who was selling it said it was his daily driver until the injection pump gave out. He was putting a new one in it the day I talked to him about it. My parents decided against buy it. That was almost twenty years ago.

Those square headlights are from the early 80s. First American built ones I believe. "Early Westy" as they're called.

My DD is an 84 2-door with a worn out 1.6. Circumstances didn't let me do a proper bore job (egged cylinders...#3 is the worst) when time came so just put in new STD rings. Probably had a full 1/4 inch ring gap...just about the ENTIRE feeler gauge SET plus the frame. Still gave 45mpg but got extremely hard to start even in 100F. New rings night n day but can still be temperamental in starting but gives consistently easy low 50s @ about 60mph to as high as 56 at times if a bit slower. I have an 81 that looks alot like that. Too bad its perfect body suffered a mishap back in November so the hood is now replaced...the drivers fender still has a bend that couldn't quite be removed...the front edge on the top is still a bit knurled...and had to replace the inner front portion of the sheet metal. Has an early 1.6 n gets about 45mpgs. Have an 81 Caddy that is "some assembly required" as it's little more than a windowless (except the doors) mobile shell. Do have another 80 Caddy I picked up a few months ago...which btw has that exact same dash. Original engine blew up and the PO tried installing another 1.5. Somethings wrong as it had no compression so dropped in a spare (early) 1.6. WHAT'S THE SECRET TO REMOVING THE INSTRUMENT FACE? I need to get behind it to sort out some PO wiring job and can't figure it out. My BENTLEY doesn't help.

Cars are much safer and cleaner these days, but I do kinda miss having such simple and light weight cars.

My dad had at least 3 of these things as I grew up. I kinda want one for the memories but the folks that have 'em don't want to sell.

New favorite channel!

saw a 82 diesel rabbit in youngstown ohio yesterday, 2 door and no rust!! pretty rare out here.

I'm still rocking pre-chamber injected 1.9 n/a diesel. Gives me an average consumption of 5.9L/100km or about 40mpg.

Great to see this. BTW I think it's more like a mid 70s maybe 77 latest, car due to the small rear lights and bumpers

I’m surprised the owner has not disabled the door buzzer after all these years.

I love how you know the repair history right offer the to of your head

It's been a while since I've seen a diesel Rabbit, but when I see a Rabbit it's always a diesel.

Was that gauge pack a VW option or after market? That will still be a nippy car even with 50 bhp. VW still use basic block for their 4cyl diesels I think.

I worked at a VW dealer in '76 and ordered one of these (brown). Changed my mind before it arrived. We had a customer with one that the engine failed. We had to ship some of the parts to Toronto (I'm in Canada) and VW refused warranty because the owner had used the wrong fuel.