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From: guy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: net.auto
Subject: Re: The Rabbit gets the axe
Message-ID: <1647@rlgvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 1-Feb-84 21:46:10 EST
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.1647
Posted: Wed Feb  1 21:46:10 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 7-Feb-84 13:05:57 EST
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> 	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