Do the drivers in this house have a propensity for front end fender benders?
The Quantum was another silly VW name game pawn. It’s nothing other than the B2 Passat, renamed Quantum for the NA market. Why? Beats me; VW did this kind of thing as recently as 2003 when they foolishly tried to bring back the Rabbit name on the Golf Mk5. Most Quantums sold here were the wagon and four door sedan (called Santana elsewhere). The three-door hatchback was sold for the first two years, but quickly dropped. It’s become a very rare sight. Here’s what it looked like:
It sported what had to be one of the bigger rear side pieces of window glass. Now that would make an interesting challenge: to identify which car did have the largest rear windows ever. Any nominations?
The Ford Sierra 2 door (non-XR4) had pretty big side glass, but I’m guessing the biggest would be a 2 door wagon, like a VW Voyage/Fox, or the Eventer XJS conversion, at least in length. Factoring in total area is more complex, and also whether you count only 2 door or also 4 door vehicles and also if you leave out trucks. The GM clamshell wagons had very large rear side glass, and curved to boot.
The sedan was the Santana elsewhere (still is in China), not the Sanatana.
The wagon in the foreground looks like a Syncro model (basically an Audi 4000 Quattro with a VW wagon body), hard to tell without seeing the badge or underneath as SOME did have the same look but were FWD. The one in the driveway looks to be an older model, maybe a 1982 or so judging by the headlights and the moldings.
The one in the street has the typical broken doorhandle. First the mechanism breaks then someone takes the whole thing off and then it stays like that… 🙂
Typo..fixed.
For heaven’s sake, how hard can it be to design a latch mechanism that’ll last? Flaws like this are supposed to be sorted out in the review process, so I would think twice before buying from a company that made cars with this sort of problem; one must wonder, where else are they fumbling or cutting costs when they can’t get something this simple correct?
Not only did they botch the design they kept using it across most of their vehicles for ages.
Working in a large organization myself, things like that may well be an artifact of some chronic organizational disfunction, like some fool Dilbert-type manager who had to be shunted into some relatively insignificant responsibility (like “Doorlock Design” or whatever) because he can’t be fired. Better to pay out warranty claims than bite the bullet & fire the idiot. Or maybe they can’t find a supplier who can do a good job at a tolerable cost, so they put up with this instead.
I wish I could be a bug on the wall sometimes, to figure out why carmakers make the design choices they do.
In China the 1st gen Santana was discontinued in 2012. The 2nd gen 2013 Santana is loosely based on the current Jetta.
Are you talking largest rear SIDE windows, specifically? If so, I can think of some prime ones:
71-80 Chevy Vega / Monza wagon ( also called the Kammback )
AMC Pacer
Any 71-76 GM B-body wagon or 71-79 fullsize Ford / Mercury wagon
I was not thinking in terms of station wagons, but hatchbacks. Although the Fox wagon does cross the line.
Those enormous-rear-side-glass hatchbacks always looked ridiculous to my American tastes.
Agreed. It only really works if the space is broken up in some manner or other, a la Alfa GTV.
The 73-77 GM A-body wagons had some cartoonishly big side glass. From what I recall of my folks ’75 Century, the VW is/was probably a more reliable proposition.
The two door was a rare sighting… every time I saw one (couldn’t have been more than a few times) I felt like I had just seen the Loch Ness monster. The rear side window was almost comically large. In person, I think it looked even bigger than in the photo.
GM X Body hatches had huge side windows in the back.
So did SAAB coupes
It wasn’t all that unusual back in the days when sedans were available as a two door, as was this Sanatana, (which oddly is also the name of an Austrian femine hygene product, which also tanned, “Did you just come from a vacation on the beach, or are you using a Sanatana?”)
Or do you mean Santana?
My dictionary shows sanatana to be a Hindu term, but I like yours better. Leave it those clever Austrians….
HEY!
I know whats going on here!
This is Charlie Joachain’s house!
http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Collision-Theory-Charles-Joachain/dp/0444867732
That side view of the Quantum reminds me so much of the Dasher. Or was the Dasher a badge engineered Audi? (Gotta hop on over to Wikipedia for enlightenment) Ahhh. a Dasher is a VW Passat nee Quatum.developed from the Audi 80/Fox after VW acquired Audi.
You’re rushing ahead a bit. VW bought Audi way back in 1966.
The Dasher/Passat was essentially the B1 Audi 80.
The Quantum is the Passat B2, which in turn was also largely the same as the Audi 80 B2.
VW was just giving us Americans stupid names for the first two generations of Passats. By the third generation, it was finally Passat in the US. But that one didn’t share the Audi’s platform.
Like Passat isn’t a stupid name too? 🙂 Or maybe I am showing my ignorance and it means something in German.
Insert “alternate” between “stupid” and “names”. As to the meaning, yes, “Passat” is German for the trade winds: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passat_%28Windsystem%29
The one on the street has a rear wheel/wheel well misalignment and a non-matching wheel. Maybe the same accident tweaked the rear as well. The car in the driveway doesn’t look so much (to me) to be damaged as disassembled. The high front suggests that the engine was removed. Maybe the crunched one on the street is going to be a donor for the other one…
Random car nerd moment: the other day we were leaving our neighborhood and I waived at someone driving two blocks from our house. Wife ‘who is that?’, me ‘someone who lives in that house’, (the one we were driving in front of), her ‘how do you know them’, me ‘I don’t her but I recognize their car’ (V6 SN95 Mustang with surf racks), me ‘that car showed up recently, their former car was a white ’69 VW Fasback and I noticed when it wasn’t parked there anymore and that car showed up’, her ‘wow, I couldn’t even tell you what color our across the street neighbors car is!’, me ‘there are many things that I don’t know about our neighbors, but I could tell you the make/model of most vehicles in a one block radius of our house and could tell you the interesting cars within a mile or so in any direction’, her ‘you need to find a way to make money with this useless skill’, me ‘true…’
I’m not seeing the rear wheel misalignment. If you look at the coupe ad, it does appear that the rear wheel sits a bit back in the opening.
Looking at other pics on goodle, it does appear that the rear wheel is not centered in the opening from the factory.
Back in my VW ownership days, I always remember seeing maybe 2 or 3 Quantums (Quanta?) in the dealer’s lot. I remember them as ungodly expensive for what they provided, and they were virtually never seen on the street. IIRC you got the inline 5 cylinder engine that was much less powerful than many much cheaper V6 sedans from the US or Asia. There was nothing that VW sold back then that made sense in financial terms, other than maybe the Jetta or GTI.
My mom bought a used 88 Quantum wagon in the mid 90’s, I remember finding the original dealer sticker and the price was $29,000. It was nice, but other than power windows and a sunroof it really didn’t have that many options, so I’m still pretty shocked it was that much.
I think a big part of it is up until 88 Jettas and GTIs were still built in PA and didn’t have to worry about the high DM which seems to really have affected these German built models
Here’s a little bit of trivia for you, this model was also built by Nissan for sale in Japan, still under the VW name, they were built between 1984 and 1989.
Ive only ever seen one of these, in far north QLD many years ago it was such a rust bucket I”m not surprised Ive yet to see another
I had a 1982 Passat L, I bought it when I was student in Paris in 1990, that car came with 1296 CC engine and 4 speed , the engine was small for the car and only filled half of the engine bay.
the gearing was real short, flat out in Motorway could only do 85mile/hour ,
it pulled strong on low gears but ran out of breath on high.
This engine had a bad habit of cracking cylinder heads around exhaust valve seats, I replaced cylinder head twice, result of driving full throtle on French motorways which were speed limited at 85Km/hr.
Never understood why VW put such a small engine, which was originally a Polo engine in the much heavier Passat , can a Curbsider Classicer come up with an explanation?
That car was definitely not an autobahn cruiser, how german engineering can justify that ?
To offer a full range of models. From VERY basic with a (too) small engine to a fully loaded model with a decent engine. Some people just want a family car and don’t care about performance or luxury at all – with a matching price.
The German competitors Ford Taunus and Opel Ascona also came with lawn mowers engines. The Ford had a 1.3 ltr. and the Opel had a 1.2 ltr. (But there was also a Ford Taunus 2.8 V6)
Not everybody in Northwestern Europe needs an Autobahn cruiser~burner….