Those of you who are easily tempted by classified ads, look away. Those of you whose spouse is already grumbling you have too many cars, click on another article. Here are five Volkswagens currently on Craigslist that might lighten your wallet and perhaps even drain your bank account.
This 1980 Dasher wagon is in remarkable condition, the only visible exterior blemish being a missing bit of bodyside moulding.
It’s a diesel, producing all of 48 hp. That was 30 hp down on the standard 1.6 four, itself no speed demon. Fortunately, this Dasher has a stick to wring out every last bit of power from that little diesel.
The interior is in remarkable condition and this Dasher has only 101,954 miles on the odometer.
Unfortunately, even the dealer’s website doesn’t go into much detail about the car. By the looks of it, though, it’s probably had just one owner in its life who took very good care of it. It’s listed for $4,995.
If you want something a little newer, a little sprightlier, and a little cheaper, this 1982 Volkswagen Quantum may interest you. It has the water-cooled 1.7 gas engine and a five-speed manual, producing 74 hp at 5000 rpm and 89 ft-lbs at 3000 rpm. With a 0-60 time of around 13 seconds, you’ll be less nervous taking this on the freeway than you would the Dasher.
It’s the less popular three-door hatchback “coupe” body style, available in the US only from 1982 to 1983. The 1.7 was also offered only during this time, making this quite a rare VW indeed.
It’s a Minnesota car so there’s a little bit of rust but it looks to be in pretty good shape, all things considered. The sheer rarity of this car makes it very appealing to me, even if it’s not as well-equipped or powerful as the later five-cylinder Quantums which attempted to move the brand upmarket in the US.
Speaking of more powerful Passats with upmarket aspirations, how about a B5.5-series W8 Passat? Continuing with the stickshift theme, this one has a six-speed manual transmission.
The all-wheel-drive W8 was a bit of a test bed for Volkswagen, presaging the even more expensive Touareg and Phaeton. It made little sense for Ferdinand Piech to push the Volkswagen brand upmarket considering the VW Group’s menagerie of luxury brands and it made even less sense to shove a 275-hp W8 engine into its mid-size sedan, no matter how elegant the car looked.
It probably makes even less sense for you to buy a used W8 considering the cost and availability of parts and the car’s questionable reliability. But with 101,000 miles on the odometer and a $4500 price tag, perhaps you’ll be tempted.
Alternatively, if you’re willing to go without the stick you could get this $1700 W8 wagon. It’s got nearly twice the miles on the odometer, some rust and it needs some sensors repaired but the interior’s clean and its ice blue paint job and handsome wagon body style are easy on the eyes.
Most people won’t even realize what your Passat is packing under its hood because Volkswagen did little to visually differentiate the W8 from lesser Passats. That means every time I see a B5.5 Passat around, the first thing I do is look to see if it has a W8 badge. It never does. This W8 wagon is apparently one of only 710 sold in the US so the odds of seeing a W8 anywhere are very small.
Finally, we come to one of my favourite Volkswagens: Ferdinand Piech’s greatest folly, the Volkswagen Phaeton. This one is the top-spec W12 model, producing 414 hp and 413 ft-lbs and mated to a five-speed automatic.
The Phaeton was designed to be capable of being driven all day at 186 mph (300 km/h) with an exterior temperature of 122°F (50°C) whilst maintaining the interior temperature at 72°F (22°C ). It weighed a whopping 1000 pounds more than an all-wheel-drive Audi A8 and gas mileage was an abysmal 11/17 mpg. But just look at that sumptuous interior! The Phaeton was intended to be more of a cruiser than the more overtly sporty A8. Standard features on the W12 included these plush 12-way power adjustable, heated, cooled and massaging seats.
When new, the W12 Phaeton retailed for between $80-95,000 in the US. Suffice it to say, this big VW was a big flop. You’d have to be very, very, very brave to buy a used Phaeton as these are extraordinarily complicated beasts and parts and repair is probably a nightmare.
If I had $10k to spend on a used car and I wanted to buy something just outrageously foolish, I’d be beating down the door of this Maryland dealership. I’m in love.
Which VW will you choose? The simple, utilitarian 1980 diesel wagon or the 21st-century 12-cylinder luxury barge? Or something in between?
Drop the 4 from the price tag and I’d think about the Dasher.
Am I the only one who saw the Honda emblem in the taillights of the b5.5 passat
My dad had a ’75 dasher he bought new . That car spent more time at bay ridge vw than at home
Unless bought on the cheep , they would be money pits
They’re all real enthusiast cars – great to drive, but needing plenty of input to keep them on the road.
All have their virtues, but the one I would most like to drive (and have someone else pay for the maintenance) is the Phaeton. You’re going to feel like the King Of The Road in there.
The VW Phaeton was no folly at all. On the contrary, it was one of Pieechs most intelligent decisions. Because he had paid a fortune for Bentley before and could not risk a flopping Bentley brand, he decided to produce a “test mule” with a VW badge. It worked very well, the press pounced on the VW, and when the Bentleys came out, they were flawess from the start.
(Of course I would also take the Phaeton any day, no question).
The Phaeton has serious swanger potential. There’s a Lambo door kit right? I’m thinking a playful Mike and Ike’s candy motif.
None.
VW has become the car of choice for people with no real interest in cars, but a more than average interest in resale value.
You will never hear someone rave about the qualities of his VW (because really, there is nothing a VW does better than its equivalent of any other brand) except for the great resale value. VW -at least in Europe- is the car for the anonymous mass, the modern day Trabant if you will.
Huh??? Just to clarify, I’m in the US and have owned various German, Italian, Swedish, American and Japanese cars over the last 45 years and I think our current Golf 7 is an outstanding car. Purchased second-hand, it’s poor resale value also made it an outstanding value.
I totally disagree….I hadn’t owned a new VW since my 1990 Corrado until the purchase of a new Golf Alltrack SE. The styling is first rate, no gimmicks, weird surfacing, gaping grilles, just clean coherent lines. The 1.8 turbo is quick, smooth and quiet….and very tunable. I just “chipped” it and added about 70hp.
The interior is well put together with great ergonomics…..For the record I replaced a BMW X3 with my Golf and I prefer the Golf
The Dasher, but I’d prefer a more beat up one to restore and swap in a 90 hp 1.9 TDI, to make it more usable daily
B5 Passat TDi in highline trim.
Best VW Passat ever made. Maybe best car VW ever made.
Did half a million k with mine until the cylinder head cracked.
The earlier Passat’s called Dasher in the US were bland cars and not up to compete with cars like a Renault R 16 or contempory Peugeots. Those horrible interiors and poor seats Brrrrrrŕ !
Always wanted a Phaeton, dead cheap to buy as a used car and probably quality wise better then a Mercedes S, a BMW 7 and an Audi A8.
By the way, Pischetsrieder, then at VW said that if Volkswagen could get $ 100 more for each Golf thanks to the prestige the Phaeton gave to the VW badge, the Phaeton would be a hughe success!
Dasher, but I’d have to repaint it brown.
I think its foolish to take any of the above.
Would prefer a 6 volt Beetle for the ’50s or ’60s.
However, the VW Phaeton (V12) would be the ultimate folly (but a nightmare to own and repair).
Ha! Beat me to it!
Has anyone LS-swapped a Phaeton yet? That might be cheaper than keeping a W12 alive.
It’d be between the two older cars for me, a lot of it would depend on the condition of the Quantum’s interior – the Dasher’s is mint, and green, but mid-80s velour is more appealing to me than still-70s vinyl.
I’d be torn between the W8 sedan and the Phaeton. In neither case is serious money involved, at least initially, and their rarity is attractive.
Actually today it’s quite likely I’ll pick up a very different VW, a new GTI. One VW a day is plenty, thanks!
The Dasher is the only one that interests me at all, but the price would need to come down by half.
This is a tough one for me, because I have never owned, driven, or worked on a VW. Going by reputation, all of them being/old/complicated/expensive, I wouldn’t buy any of them. But that’s because for financial reasons I have to always spend smartly and practically.
Which sucks.
So F it. The Phaeton. It’s awesome and beautiful.
But so is Lt. Dan’s ’83 Grand Prix. I’d rather have that. Or one of the large American cars from the 70s from the other day.
The Dasher diesel is pretty cool to me. I like the looks of it and the longevity of diesels in general. And in this case the ironic name.
I like the looks of the Quantum a lot. The side glass and front end in particular. But a similar-vintage Scirocco does all that a little better but isn’t one of the choices.
On a side note I love the door handles of Volkswagens from the 80s. I’ve only worked them in junkyard cars but they just feel great. They are similar to the Porsche 944 door handle. Which I actually have. Just the handle. Because I’m just that weird.
I’m really all over the place on this one. I shouldn’t get on the comments before morning coffee.
I looked long and hard at a manual transmission W8 Passat on Craigslist about ten years ago. Long as in two or three minutes. I made the right choice. I’d pick the Dasher, and TDi it.
What TDI would you use?
I think a 90hp 1.9 would give that Dasher quite a bit of pep, My Audi 80 moves quite well with that engine
Pass
I’ve already seen all these. 🙂
I think logically the Dasher is probably the one to get. It’s the simplest of this bunch.
I’ve actually driven a stick shift W8 Passat years ago on one of my searches and came away disappointed, it felt much slower and heavier than I thought it would be. Probably a very good thing. Still, that W8 wagon looks great, love the quad exhaust tips and the BBS wheels, I believe that marks it as a 2004.
When buying a Passat B5.5 V6 in 2003, the dealer offered to sell me a W8-equipped version of the same car at the same price. I was intrigued by the W8, but even then the internet was full of horror stories about W8 reliability, so I passed and got the V6, which ended up also having its share of typical VW maladies.
Of this group, I too would go with the Dasher diesel wagon. My father had an early Eighties Rabbit equipped with the same 48 hp engine, so I know it will be slow, but the torque will get it going just fine. It lasted for nearly 200k miles, however, so this Dasher appears to just be getting started.
Sounds about right. A contemporary review suggested that the ‘W8’ stood for ‘wait ‘
For their rarity, I would go with the early Dasher (and at some point swap in a MUCH more powerful gas engine) or the Quantum…again, with an eye to an eventual engine swap.
In the fall of 74 I bought the only VW product I would ever buy new, a 74 Audi Fox. It was a ball to drive but not so much to own. Stupid little things broke or failed, sometimes over and over at regular intervals. I had the emergency brake fail to release once, making me nearly miss a day of work. And while it always started, you couldn’t be sure you would get far.
I feel your pain. Our family had a Fox about the same time, and much the same experience. After it stranded us a few hundred miles from home, my parents switched to Toyotas and never looked back.
Wow, the VW love is strong this morning!
My first question was “which will easily accommodate and haul a harp?”. That gets me down to the two wagons, the Dasher being grossly underpowered and the Passat W8 being a prima donna of sorts.
So in Jason’s Ideal World it would be the Dasher with a contemporary 1.8T.
Folk harp or orchestral pedal harp?
One folk harp, one lever harp.
You can see the lever harp here: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/new-cars/curbside-rental-service-2017-toyota-sienna-i-declined-a-bmw-in-favor-of-a-toyota-minivan/
None for me thanks….
I have known people who have had Sciroccos, Passats, Jettas, Rabbits, and of course Classic Beetles. I think I would opt for a 1968 bug, and I would get a house near DougD so he could help me with it.
There’s something to love in all of these, but I’d want the Phaeton because it’s just so ridiculous. But it also appeals to my sense of anti-blinginess, an ultra-luxury car disguised as a mainstream family sedan. When new, the Phaeton was the ultimate “do you see a glass half empty or half full” car. Was it way too expensive for a VW, or was it a bargain Bentley Continental Flying Spur for 50% less? I saw the latter, and am intrigued at the low prices these change hands for in recent years. And at the thought of telling people when asked what I drive, “a VW”.
I have warm memories and associations with Dashers thanks to certain teenaged events, and I’ve always liked roomy 3 door hatchbacks so the rare-in-the-US Quantum floats my boat too. The Passat was the only car of its type to offer an 8 cylinder engine (or a choice of three cylinder counts) and a very nice car all around, at least when it worked. I learned something new by looking at the audio head unit in the car shown here – my DD is a 2007 Rabbit with almost the same radio, and I never knew earlier version of it had a cassette player. I may have to do a swap!
None of the above.
K70 would be ok, but I’d replace the VW badges with NSUs
I borrowed a Dasher Diesel Wagon from a friend a few times and remember using the gas pedal more as an on-off switch, it was either to the floor or my foot was on the brake, just to keep up with traffic. This one looks better than most I’ve seen in the past 35 years but that price would have been high back then too.
One of my cars was kind of a mixture of the Dasher (body type) and the Quantum (generation, although B1 & B2 VWs are pretty similar anyway)… 1985 Passat Variant wagon, 1.8 L, automatic. A good car, but just too old & unreliable to be practical as a daily driver. And too unexciting to keep it just for the fun of it. Now, if it was a 2 door, like the Quantum, hmmm…
None of them. I had a Quantum turbodiesel wagon for a while in the mid-2000s, and it was just too hard to get parts.
I saw something some years ago on a VW/Audi listserv about a mechanic in New England who needed to source a replacement W8 engine for a customer’s car. He couldn’t find a wrecking yard engine at all and had to get a brand new crate engine. It wasn’t cheap.
Nada, Nyet, Nein.
None of the above. I am not a VW fan.
I would pick the dasher, slow but that diesel is barely broken in. I just picked up a 92 eurovan Westfalia yesterday. It was too good a deal to pass up. It needs some front end work but has low Kms for its year at 260 000. 5 speed manual with a 5 cylinder Audi motor. This one has a pop top, ice box (not 3 way fridge), stove and sink. Although tempting to keep I am going to try to fix and sell on to some #vanlife milenial to enjoy. The prices on nice ones are eye opening. If I decide to keep it at least it has a good heater and can keep up with modern traffic unlike my old 1974.
Count me in on the Dasher. Easy to upgrade to a 1.9 turbo, or otherwise.
I would go for the Dasher wagon. Fact of the matter is, this was the car my father drove when I was very little, the first car that I remember riding in. It even had the 48 hp Diesel! He bought it from his brother for 25 bucks and still it might have been overpriced. I remember how we started the car. My mother, still young, would get some college students together and they would help us push the car while my father was behind the wheel trying to bring the Diesel to life once more. It was never clear if it would be the last.
It is utterly amazing to me that one of this is still around. I virtually look at every car I see and I have seen one Dasher in 15 years which was a five foor gas model – and I live in Germany! Finding one like this is like winning the lottery without having bought a ticket.
“The Phaeton was designed to be capable of being driven all day at 186 mph (300 km/h) with an exterior temperature of 122°F (50°C) whilst maintaining the interior temperature at 72°F (22°C ).”
Finally! A car built for my daily driving conditions.
I’d definitely go for the Quantum for sheer rarity, and I wouldn’t touch that Phaeton without a Doug DeMuro level extended warranty.
Unfortunately none of these are what I really want, a Corrado VR6.
These are some unusual (rare) VWs.
Like slow_joe_crow, if there was a Corrado in the bunch, I’d like that (or rather myself in 1992 would like it). I’ve owned no other make than VW since 1981 so I guess you could say this is up my alley. In 1983 I owned a ’78 Scirocco (bought in 1981) and it suited my younger self well, but even though it is my sentimental favorite, I probably wouldn’t enjoy it as much 36 years later. Of those shown, I’d like the ’83 Quantum, probably because I never owned a “B” model VW, and the Quantum was the last of the midsizers to come as a hatchback,which this is (big hatchback fan here), and of course a rare body style…and I also like the color (brown lover)….if it had the tweedy tan interior, that would be so much the better. However….did you say “Minnesota” (it looks very good though for a 36 year old Minnesota car)… Hmm a 36 year old Quantum from there might be as good an idea as the Phaeton or the W8 Passat….so I might have to fall back to the Dasher. The engine bay of the Dasher looks odd to me with its north-south engine and offset radiator, since I never owned one of the midsized VWs nor a VW Fox which I guess had the Dasher layout, with the battery near the firewall, it looks unusual to me. As mentioned, the price is too high for this vintage of car, but it also looks to be in very good condition for its age (but the possible tweed seats of the Quantum are calling me far more than the vinyl ones on the Dasher).
Honestly, these have me at a bit of a loss…if I’d have to buy these actual cars and not similar models (for instance the ’83 Quantum, but from my state of Texas (unseen for ages by me here) instead of Minnesota that would make my decision easier)).
The Dasher wagon does it for me. Under-powered diesel? Check. Stick shift? Check. Wagon? Double check. And last but not least: Missing door trim? Triple check. Almost certainly the car is gonna let me down, but I love the look, and the soot.
By the way, we were still on VW’s books from our purchase of a 2001 Beetle when the Phaeton came out. Presumably for that reason, I got an invitation to test drive the then-new Phaeton at the recently decommissioned Alameda Naval Air Station. Work, family, plus my total lack of interest (or finances) in owning such a car prompted me to ignore the invitation. Now of course, I wish I’d tried it.
The Passat Wagon – my favorite generation of the Passat.
The Dasher & Quantum are cool, but the Passat offers pep & all-wheel-drive. Love the Phaeton, but would be concerned with its upkeep.
Tell me, Mr Stopford, the Phaeton is one your favourite VW’s, you say. Well now, me also, and I do wish they’d sold it here so there would occasionally be one on Carsales now at 5% of the original price. But what is it? The absurdity of the contrast to the Beetle? The hubris? The fact that it’s quite desireable as a luxobarge in it’s own right? I get no further than that, but I still really want one, and that list isn’t nearly good enough. So, what?
(Btw, I’d probably get the elegant Dasher from this lot, albeit with some cash to add a turbo, and somehow without that horrid slabby dash. The earlier simpler pod was so much nicer, and the essence of it was used in Audi’s much-acclaimed interiors for years after).
….and of course that identical dash was in the 80/Fox.`
None of them. I’m jinxed with new or used German cars. Every one I’ve had has been a money pit and a nightmare from delivery to disposal.
I’d be up for a nice Japanese or American car though.
Dasher all day! Call it rose-tinted glasses for things I never lived through but it looks great and can’t be that hard to fix.
I stumbled across this after I purchased one of the actual cars here-the Quantum. I am much more into the air cooled VW Hobby but always liked these rare Quantum coupes. The car was owned by the original owner from 1982-2015, and I was able to reach her on FB. The car has all of the manuals and many records going back to new. Surprisingly much of it is very solid, and the rust you see in the pics is currently being cut out and replaced with new metal, and a full repspray in the original color. Everything on the car works.