Today’s custom VW Pickup is claimed to come with an extra, SCCA-prepped mill. Let’s see if that, and its price. really gets your motor running.
With an 88% Nice Price with, yesterday’s didn’t surprise. In fact, the most shocking thing was that the result wasn’t higher. Maybe the miles outweighed the maintenance receipts, and the car’s general big-Accord-ness was too much for some.
Sometimes too much just isn’t enough. In the case of today’s however, that too much—too much white paint, too much number of engines, too much GTi-ness—might be, as once famously intoned by golden-curled home invader, just right.
Long before there was Dieselgate, Volkswagen suffered another corporate shame, and that was the Americanization of the Rabbit compact coming out of the company’s Westmoreland Pennsylvania plant. That didn’t mean the car was supersized, but it did mean the arrival of some lurid color coordinated interiors, tackily detailed side marker light lenses, and a wrap-around nose with rectangular lights that eliminated the cars’ European wide-eyed charm.
A good thing to come out of Pennsylvania however, was the A1-based Rabbit Pickup. I don’t know exactly why, but most of us—me included—love these little guys. Introduced in 1979 and offered with either a 1.5-litre oil burner or a 1.7-litre gas four, the Rabbit Pickup became an almost-instant cult classic.
This 1982 Rabbit Pickup doesn’t have either of those original engine options under its extremely white hood. Instead it has what is described as a balanced and blueprinted SCCA IT (Improved Touring) engine as a motivating factor. It also comes with a whole second engine just for poops and popsicles, and that one is said to be an SCCA GT3 rocker.
Helping with driveline duties here are a five-speed manual with a short shifter kit and a limited slip differential to limit the slip. Those send power to the front wheels, and both front and back axles are capped with what are described as real-deal Panasport alloys.
Visually, the truck has been beefed up with a lot of GTI trim. There’s a red-ringed GTI grille up front, GTI fender flares on the side, and, well, that’s about it. The trucklet looks pretty sweet albeit in a heavily monochromatic way.
Inside there’s a little more color to be had, with a pair of plaid buckets and a (thankfully) black dash. The carpet is AWOL, but there’s floor mats to keep your feet from getting a chill on cold days.
The seller says he’s owned the Pickup for 10 years, and if you eyeball the rest of his stuff (apparently much of which is also for sale) you’ll get the idea that he’s no dilettante when it comes to Vee-Dubs. He says he’s replaced and upgraded “almost everything” on the truck over the course of that ownership and is now culling his collection and hence is letting it go.
The price is $10,000 which isn’t admittedly isn’t chicken feed. It is however in the realm of reality considering the following these trucks have, and so it’s now your chance to say whether that ten-grand is too much, or is the right price for a VW Pickup that is itself, too much.
You decide!
Raleigh , or go if the ad disappears.
H/T to wantafuncar for the hookup!
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