1983 Volkswagen Rabbit Diesel Pickup With 35gal Grease Tank (83 Vw Veggie Wvo) on 2040-cars
Memphis, Tennessee, United States
Body Type:Pickup Truck
Engine:1.6L diesel
Vehicle Title:Clear
Fuel Type:Diesel
For Sale By:Private Seller
Interior Color: Burgundy
Make: Volkswagen
Number of Cylinders: 4
Model: Rabbit
Trim: 2 door pickup truck
Drive Type: FWD
Mileage: 88,122
Sub Model: LX
Warranty: Vehicle does NOT have an existing warranty
Exterior Color: White
This truck is not something most people would consider driving to pick up a date. I did, and it was the best date of my life, but the body and interior are pretty rough.
That said, this truck is mechanically SOLID as described below, and I have most, if not all receipts.
Rebuilt:
Engine + clutch
Injector pump
Starter
Alternator
This truck starts up on the coldest day in February on the first try after sitting for two months. No smoke with great pickup. This thing ZIPS!
New (or relatively new):
Ball joints
Tie rod ends
CV boots
Timing belt
brake pads and shoes
Turned drums and rotors
shocks
Tires are in good shape
PLUS: comes with 35gal Greasecar fuel tank. I planned to convert it, but I moved and no longer drive the car.
History: Someone gave it to me in poor mechanical condition in 2005. I needed it for a film project in 2009, so I made the investment and spent the time to get it running right. I drove it for a year off and on after that.
Besides the cosmetics, here's what needs attention:
- Balljoint bolts need to be replaced with hardened steel bolts
- AC doesn't work
- fan/defrost noisy and only works on high
- AC compressor mounting is broken (The belt system works, but the AC bracket needs to be repaired or replaced with non-AC belt and mount.)
- odometer broken
-It's loud, but not unbearable; sounds like a leak in the exhaust between the header and muffler
I, or someone in my family, starts and drives the truck every couple months, though it does sit idle for long periods. I don't want to sell it, but it deserves more love and attention...
On May-27-13 at 18:47:43 PDT, seller added the following information:There is no stereo and someone else asked about rust. There is no structural rust to speak of other than average wear for the southern US, though the body has a few spots. It looks like someone did a poor job on the driver's side floor pan, though the pan itself is holding up fine.
On May-29-13 at 20:39:57 PDT, seller added the following information:
Volkswagen Rabbit for Sale
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Auto blog
A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]
Thu, Dec 18 2014Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.
Ferdinand Piech (1937-2019): The man who made VW global
Tue, Aug 27 2019Towering among his peers, a giant of the auto industry died Sunday night in Rosenheim/Upper Bavaria, Germany. Ferdinand Piech, a grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, who conceived the original Volkswagen in the 1930s, was the most polarizing automotive executive of our times. And one who brought automotive technology further than anyone else. Ferdinand Porsche had a son, Ferdinand (called "Ferry"), and a daughter, Louise, who married the Viennese lawyer Anton Piech. They gave birth to Ferdinand Piech, and his proximity to two Alfa Romeo sports cars — Porsche had done some work for the Italians — and the "Berlin-Rome-Berlin" race car, developed by Porsche himself, gave birth to Piech's interest in cars. After his teachers in Salzburg told his mother he was "too stupid" to attend school there, Piech, who was open about his dyslexia, was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland. He subsequently moved on to Porsche, where he fixed issues with the 904 race car and did major work on the 911. But his greatest project was the Le Mans-winning 917 race car, developed at breathtaking financial cost. It annihilated the competition, but the family had had enough: Amid growing tension among the four cousins working at Porsche and Piech's uncle Ferry, the family decided to pull every family member, except for Ferry, out of their management positions. Piech started his own consultancy business, where he designed the famous five-cylinder diesel for Mercedes-Benz, but quickly moved on to Audi, first as an engineer and then as CEO, where he set out to transform the dull brand into a technology leader. Piech killed the Wankel engine and hammered out a number of ambitious and sophisticated technologies. Among them: The five-cylinder gasoline engine; Quattro all-wheel drive and Audi's fantastic rally successes; and turbocharging, developed with Fritz Indra, whom Piech recruited from Alpina. The Audi 100/200/5000 became the world's fastest production sedan, thanks to their superior aerodynamics. Piech also launched zinc-coated bodies for longevity — and gave diesel technology a decisive boost with the advent of the fast and ultra-efficient TDI engines. Less known: Piech also decided to put larger gas tanks into cars. Customers loved it. Piech's first-generation Audi V8 was met with derision by competitors; it was too obviously based on the 200/5000.
The super-sized Atlas isn't the three-row VW should build
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