My Rabbit

I wrote this as a writing challenge.  "Write about your first car- what was it and how did it drive?  350 words minimum."


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            My first car was a 1975 Volkswagen Rabbit.  It had a five speed manual transmission, and was painted a faded avocado color (puke green.)  Seriously. 

I bought it in June 1985.  The engine sputtered a little, and it had an oil leak, but it ran, and the price was right: $500.  I bought it with money borrowed from my dad against the money I’d make from painting my then girlfriend’s parents’ house.  It had a couple of rust spots, and bumper stickers saying “This car climbed Mount Washington” and “South of the Border” when I got it.  I tore those off immediately.

Picture taken during a snowstorm. December 1986

It ran rough, and always smelled like burning oil.  I had to put at least a quart of oil in it every week, but, as it was good on gas, I didn’t mind.  As with all VW cars of the time, the engine made noise when driving- like a big lawnmower.  What I didn’t know at the time was that 1975 was the first year the Rabbit was produced, and it had a reputation as having a bad transmission.

I found out how bad on August 14, 1985: the day of the Bruce Springsteen concert at Veterans Stadium.  The ramp from 202 to the Schuylkill Expressway was under construction then, and was surrounded by concrete barrier, narrowing the roadway as I drove through the construction zone.  The Rabbit stalled in the middle of bumper to bumper traffic.  And it wouldn’t re-start.  The cars behind mine started honking their horns.  I was getting frantic.  My girlfriend of the time and I pushed the car twenty or so feet until it was off the exit ramp and into the construction zone itself.  The transmission was dead.  Fortunately, friends of mine saw us, were also going to the show, and gave us a ride to and from the event.  A refurbished transmission cost $1200, and they put it in backwards.  Cost another $500 to get that fixed.  So much for my painting and co-op money!

The only other notable thing about that car was that its backseat was where I lost my virginity in August 1985.  Tight quarters, but we made it happen.  I was only 5’6” back then and she was very flexible.  I know- too much information.

The Rabbit met its end in January 1987, while I was at my second semester at Penn State.  My parents let my brother “borrow” the car while I was at school, and, according to my dad, the front right wheel broke off the axle while my brother was driving it.  As my brother had, and still has, a nasty habit of crashing cars, I don’t think that was the whole story.

In any case, to compensate me, my dad bought me another car: a beige 1977 Ford Mustang II (considered by every car expert to be the WORST car EVER made.)  My brother drove that one into the ground before I graduated college- he called it “Shitty Shitty Bang Bang.”  I nursed it until late 1989, when it finally died.

Car pics taken from my scrapbook of the time.