Have You Ever Seen a Purple Rabbit?
February 26, 2008
Way back in early 1996 I bought a Rabbit. A Volkswagen Rabbit. Not just any Volkswagen Rabbit. A super-cool silver 1984 Volkswagen Rabbit. With a diesel engine. I like cars from the 80’s. The 80’s had a lot of cool cars. Like the Buick Grand National. The Alfa Romeo GTV6. The VW Rabbit/Golf. The VW Scirocco. The Honda Civic. There are others, but those come to mind right away. I like their lines.
All of our vehicle at this time were from the 80’s. We had the 1984 VW Rabbit. A 1985 VW Vanagon and a 1984 or 85 Mitsubishi Mighty Max. Notice we had two Volkswagens? Volkswagens are cool. I wouldn’t mind having a couple right now. My first car was a 1973 VW Super Beetle.
Anyway, have you ever seen a purple Rabbit? Remember the 1984 VW Rabbit I bought? The silver one? The one with the diesel engine? It was cool! But it was silver. Faded silver. Faded silver did not match our other vehicle at the time - the Mitsubishi Mighty Max. The Mighty Max was faded silver too - when I bought it. But since, at that time, we were living in Turkey, land of cheap labor, I decided the faded silver color had to go. So, the mighty Max was now a nice Kawasaki Green! It didn’t really look that much like a Might Max anymore because of all the body modifications we had done to it - but, that is a story for another time. For now, just remember that our other vehicle was Kawasaki Green and the faded silver Rabbit did not look good next to it.
So, being that we were in the land of cheap labor, I took the Rabbit to the local body shop. We knew the owner of this body shop very well, as it took him over a year to complete our truck. I forget how much we paid to get the Rabbit painted and have the interior completely redone, but it was cheap. I am thinking $500 or so.
These are the best pictures I can find right now. This is in January 1997 in Fairfield, CA.
I love the lines on this car. Is that Jenna playing in the street by herself?
I had intentions of fixing the bumper.
And changing out the wheels.
The interior was nice. See the stitched VW logo on the headrests?
I never got around to fixing the bumper or changing the wheels out. The Rabbit died a horrible death on I-80 one evening. Something about oil - the lack of oil! it was not my fault - really! It wasn’t. I don’t remember what ever happened to this car after the oil incident. I am sure Katie remembers.
Here is a picture of me and Jenna the same day I took the pictures of the Rabbit.
I guess Jenna wasn’t playing in the street by herself - here is Katie.
A closer look at my fabulous wife! Isn’t she a cutie? That is back when she was still enamored with me and had to watch everything I did. ;)
February 26th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
VWs are cool. Want to buy one? My husband has a 2007 VW Rabbit - silver. We’re getting ready to sell it, because even though it is super cool, $14,000 in debt isn’t ;) We’d love to buy one of those older VW vans I see in the background of one of the pictures ;)
February 26th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
My grandma had a rabbit too. Loved that car. The engine was so loud, as a child you thought that meant you were going really fast. ;)
Katie is a cutie. She’s not looking terribly enamored in the pictures though. She has more of a “shouldn’t we be leaving this to the professionals?” look it think. ;)
February 26th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
I have been married for almost seven years and in that time we have owned THREE VW rabbits. *sigh* Each has had its share of problems but me dear Husband just loves them. So we keep forking out the money for repairs. The one we currently own got a bit waterlogged in the big flod we had in December.
When I was a kid my grandparents owned a VW van and would pile us kids in the back and take us to the drive-in. We would all lay down in the back (they would put a mattress back there for us) and watch the movie through the windows.
February 26th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
flod = flood
sorry *blush*
February 26th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Ahhh yes, VW’s. My mom had a beetle, then a camper van. My favorite car was my VW Squareback Sedan, had 2 of them, an orange then a pale blue! They were really roomy! When I was in high school, Mom almost bought me a Karmann Ghia, but she didn’t. :(
My two stepsons run a car lot, and VW’s are their cars of choice!
Now we like Toyota’s. Dh has a Highlander that just turned over 300,000 miles and is still going strong! He LOVES it, it’s SO comfortable!
But there’s just something about VW’s dontchaknow, and a beetles, the “old” ones, not the new wannabe’s! ;)
February 26th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Ahh, VWs….my husband and I are currently restoring a 1972 (I think it’s a ‘72) VW bus. It is in decent condition all except for that pesky little thing called an engine, oh and it didn’t have axles let alone tires when it arrived at our home on a car hauler. It now has one axle and will slowly but surely get put together. Luckily we have a beautiful “parts” VW also sitting on our property to supply the missing pieces. People nearly wreck when they drive down our country road and see two VW buses sitting by our shop. Fun, fun!
Have a great day!
~Gretchen
February 26th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
I had a 1968 Squareback. It was light blue. That was a cool car! I would not mind having another one of those.
Sorry, Cloth_doll… I don’t need a 2007 Rabbit. :)
February 26th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
My dh had a Volkswagon GOLF Diesel as a company car when we lived in Lancaster, PA. It was a GREAT car! I wish we had one now! Super great gas mileage!
February 26th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Oh! I had a beige, 84 Rabbit 4 door! I loved that car! I MISS that car! I know it would be completely impractical now, sigh. I had plans to rebuild the engine, but lack of money made me sell it cheap when it died :( If I came across it again today, I would try to get it back!
February 26th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
I love VW’s too. I gues you’re in the same boat as we are because all our kids would never fit in even the largest VW out there today.
I had a 1987 Fox GL and it served me very well even though I never took care of it. It drove and drove until I sold it in Panama and came back to the States. We had a Jetta for a while as well. When we graduated to needing two cars we bought a used 1989 VW Fox and it also met our needs. We went to Cuba and left it with a 16yo boy from our church. I don’t know whether either of these Foxes are still on the road but I’d like to think that they are.
OC
http://www.offensivechristians.com/blog
February 26th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
You’ve proved my theory wrong– apparently straight men do drive purple cars. (Altho I still really doubt it.)
Katie sure has gotten better looking with age. lol!
February 27th, 2008 at 9:43 am
VW lover, here :) My first car was an 80 something gray, diseal Rabbit. Currently sport around town in a new, yellow Beetle and I’m always looking for an older VW van.
March 2nd, 2008 at 5:57 pm
My first car was a 1965 VW Bug. :)
March 18th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
We had an ancient VW bug in horrible condition. Since our Honda was dead in the driveway, we did need another mode of transport. However, when I say horrible, I mean horrible. There were 2×2’s holding the front seats in place, and there was so much play in the steering wheel that any normal car would have turned already. The floor boards were almost completely rusted out in the back seat, and we had to crawl under it and bang on the starter with a small hammer to get her going. On a trip back from our home town to where we were currently stationed, I had to keep changing the baby’s clothing because we were covered in rust torn loose by the wind and vibration of the vehicle. But my husband really wanted that car…those were the days!