AMT VW Rabbit

[RGronovius]

Here is a model car kit I built around late 1984. It is the old AMT VW Rabbit which I believe is a 1978 first generation Rabbit. I built and painted it to look like my very first brand new car, a 1984 Wolfsburg Edition Rabbit L. There were several external changes from the '78 to '84 model years, most notably the front and side directional lights were combined into a larger light adjacent to the now-square headlights. Back then, I was happy just to have a kit of the make & model of my car.

 

It's dust covered and almost 29 years old, but it still holds a special place in my display cabinet. The boxed kit is one I bought on eBay many years ago. My original kit was molded in white, but the unbuilt one is molded in yellow. I don't know if the kits were randomly molded in any particular color or if the color was based on a particular year.

 

[ghodges]

(In my best Elmer Fudd)..."Kill da Wabbit, kill da wabbit".....

 

That's a gerat, very faithful replica! I had a very good friend who owned one of those (in red). As I recall he had to replace the fuse box under the right dash TWICE, as the windshield kept leaking and shorted it all out!

 

GIL

[RGronovius]

It appears he and I had the same/similar issue. The windshield or sun roof, my car had a solid metal sun roof that cranked back into the rear portion of the roof like a window, leaked and my fuse box would get wet. It often required that I replace the flasher relay (about $25 back then) in order for my turn signals to work. I think I replaced it about 3-4 times. Sometimes the driver's floor area was so wet my feet would squish the floot mat against the carpet.

 

I traded the car in for a 1988 Mitsubishi Montero when I was stationed in Germany. Too many little issues arose in quality.