(First Posted September 27, 2013) I found this pickup a couple of weeks ago, and have been holding it in reserve for Volkswagen week. With its shiny red paint job and sporty wheels, it looks ready to leap into service, providing its owner with a useful load capacity and economical operation. Volkswagen built this pickup in their Westmoreland, PA factory, and first offered it in late 1979 as a ’80 model.
By offering a pickup built in the US, Volkswagen had a competitive advantage over the Japanese mini-trucks. Up until 1980, Toyota, Nissan, Isuzu and Mazda had been avoiding the “Chicken Tax,” a 25% tariff on imported trucks, by shipping vehicles to the US without a bed, and completing the assembly in the states. In 1980, Congress closed that loophole, increasing the tariff on all imported Japanese pickups. In contrast, Volkswagen’s Pennsylvania factory allowed them to sell their Pickup tariff free.
This picture clearly establishes the Pickup’s roots, as every component forward of the back window appears to interchange with a Rabbit. Based on the horizontally mounted front marker lights, it appears the fenders may have been exchanged with a German sourced Rabbit (Golf), as all pickups of this era were US built and had vertically mounted marker lights. Later models shared the US Rabbit’s wrap around turn signal/marker light assemblies.
However, given California’s close proximity to Mexico and parts south, and Volkswagens tendency to move tooling from country to country, this may be a newer pickup built in another market, and then snuck across the border sometime in the past thirty years…
Back when I lived in Colorado, encountering one of these on a mountain road led to many miles spent viewing this tailgate. The pickup originally came with two engine options- a gasoline four with little power (78 HP), and a diesel four with no power (48 HP). Both engine options provided impressive fuel economy, but required a patient driver to reap the benefits of low displacement. Volkswagen did upgrade the motor in 1982, but the only vehicle the Pickup outgunned shared space in the VW showroom, and came with a van body.
Volkswagen provided a full 6 foot bed, and engineered a monocoque body using double wall construction. The pickup offered an 1,100 pound load capacity, and held up well in service. The wheelbase increased by 8.8 inches compared to a Rabbit, with an overall length extension of 15.8 inches.
NONE of this extra length appeared in the cab. I looked at buying one of these pickups in the mid-eighties, and a brief drive around the block convinced me the cab was unlivable for anyone taller than six feet (maybe even 5′ 8″). Keep in mind; I drive a Miata on a regular basis, so I’m not claustrophobic. This cab provides less leg room than a typical full sized van, but lacked the tall cab and elevated seats!
In 1980 and ’81, Rabbit pickup sales were very solid, exceeding 25,000 units each year. However, sales quickly tanked, dropping below 10,000 units in 1983. Sales of the diesel engine were especially hard hit, going from about 75% of sales in 1981 to only 27% the next year.
Many websites blame this sales drop on cheap gas, but gas prices remained high in ’82 and ’83. I think the more likely explanation was two new pickups that also avoided the chicken tax.
The Chevy S-10 appeared in 1982, and Ford brought out the Ranger in 1983. Both models were US built, and as the 1983 prices shown in this picture indicate, significantly undercut the Volkswagen’s base price. Since US truck buyers preferred the body on frame construction of these new trucks, VW sales evaporated. In 1984, Volkswagen sent the truck tooling to South Africa, where they built pickups until 2007.
That does not make the VW Pickup a bad vehicle- it provided reliable service and met the needs of its drivers. But when the pickup market offers more truck for less money, good fuel economy isn’t enough to maintain sales. Until someone finds a way to defeat this equation, car based trucks remain tucked into the background of automotive history, waiting for their moment in the sun.
Cool find. Mrs JPC has some cousins with one of these moldering in the driveway, but I have never gotten pictures.
Another possible factor in the demise of this pickup was that the Dodge Rampage came out in 1982 and the twin Plymouth Scamp in 83. These didn’t sell that well either, but I think that there was a limited market for a small car-based fwd pickup, and the Mopar offerings offered another option that was a bit less expensive.
Another thought is that with fuel prices starting to recede, the larger (but thirstier) El Camino became something to consider again. Car based pickups have never done that well here in the U.S., and VW’s unique advantage as a small, high-mpg ute sort of went away after 1982 or so.
The Chryco offerings also offered a bit more cab space and were better proportioned, being based on the coupe model and using its’ long doors.
Nice write-up! I’m sure it’s a great little trucklet, but the proportions of these always struck me as really odd. That and the fact that they sit really low, or at least seem to.
The current VW pickup, the Amarok (so who does come up with these names?), sure looks a lot different.
I think a conventional pickup-truck will always be a niche product in Europe.
For the very simple reason we use light flatbed trucks, like this Volkswagen.
Single cab, double cab, short wheelbase, long wheelbase, dual rear tires, 4×4, whatever you want. (All of them are commercial vehicles, only real hardcore enthusiasts use a pickup truck as a daily driver or grocery getter.)
I see one big advantage: you can load and unload it with a forklift from 3 sides.
(Picture: Ruinemans Bedrijfswagens)
CC Effect: saw one of these in tan with 70s-esque orange and brown stripes here in Michigan a few months ago. Looked like an elderly-citizen-owned creampuff and might have been one-owner too! Sadly, my mom wouldn’t let me stalk it for CC 🙁
If VW avoided the chicken tax — and shared so many components with the Rabbit — why was the price so high? If they were profit taking, might they have cut the price before giving up on the pickup?
To me the biggest weakness of the VW was its styling. This is a great example of penny-wise, pound-foolish design. Unique doors with a bit longer cab could have made all the difference in the world.
I also wonder whether a unit-body car/truck really needed six-foot bed capacity. A shorter bed would have given the VW better proportions.
If VW has suffered from a single consistent thing over the long haul in the American market, it has been overpricing. Whether their cost structure has been out of line, exchange rates, building the cars with too many expensive components and designs, or just bad marketing, I have no idea. Other than the $6100 Fox we read about earlier this week (and maybe the Phaeton which, while expensive, seemed to be a decent value for what it was) every VW in recent memory has been priced too high for what you got. A mystery.
Exactly. I just bought a new midsized sedan, and was really excited from all the reviews I read about the Passat, until I sat down and priced them out. A Passat comparable in price to a midlevel Accord or Altima comes with horrible equipment levels, and the ancient 5 cylinder. For several thousand less than a 25mpg Passat with vinyl seats, I got a 40 mpg Altima with every option I wanted. The diesel VW would be great, but that’s going to be about $7k more than the Altima, for maybe a couple MPG more. Plus, there’s still the issue of having to visit my VW dealer every month for niggling little repairs.
That and the fact that 99.999999999% of all VW dealers are total duchebags are most likely the key reasons that people are not flocking to VW dealers. When I was in the market for a car in 2005, I went first to VW to look at the Jetta but was put off of the car due to the arrogance of the VW sales people. Their holier then thou attitude caused me to go down the street and buy a Accord.
Plus as JP mentioned, they are over priced. For instance the base model 2005 Jetta with the 2.0 engine puts out 114hp and was at the high end of the compact car pricing. by contrast the 2005 Civic had 115hp in the base engine, the 2005 Focus had 136hp, the 2005 Corolla base engine was 130hp and all were cheaper then the VW and more reliable.
Face it with the impressive cars coming out of Asia and Detroit, there really is not a good reason to by a VW anymore(For me, I would not even consider a VW at all when i get a new car)
VW lost all the things that made it great in the past. Back in the 60’s and 70’s, VW’s were cheap when new and easy to fix when crap broke. Now they are over priced and when crap breaks it costs a ton of coin to fix.
Now and in the years to come, what does make a car strictly American, Asian or European ? Think global, because that’s what all automakers do too, on both sides of the pond.
Global may work for the car segments (Camry, Civic, three door hatches), but every market has niche vehicles that do not play worldwide-
Strictly American? F150, Surburban, Mustang-Camaro-Challenger
Strictly European? Smart or Mercedes A-Class
Strictly Asian? Honda Dream (50 cc motorcycle)
This is part of why I didn’t even bother to test a Jetta when I went car-shopping in late 2004. I’d heard nothing but bad things about VW reliability and dealer service, I absolutely hated the looks of the contemporary Jetta, and getting one equipped the way I wanted would have been expensive. I was also put off that the decently powerful engines required premium fuel. I ended up buying a Mazda 3, which was much more powerful and much better equipped for a lot less money.
It’s a shame nobody offers this kind of small pickup. I prefer body on frame, but the economics don’t work for this market. So that leaves a car based trucklet like this. Some day a manufacturer will take a chance, I just hope I’m in the position to take advantage of the situation.
I still see these here once in a while. Somebody likes them.
You could argue the Honda Ridgeline is in the same spirit as this truck. The odd porpotions even kind of resemble each other.
Of course the VW offers far more utility. The Ridgeline has a tiny bed and doesn’t offer much better mileage, if any, than a full-size.
Uhhh…how do you figure the old VW pickup has more utility than a Ridgeline? Did you see the part about the diesel having just 48hp, the gas having 78hp?
I’ve driven both, and it’s night and frickin’ day man. No way the old VW truck was a better work vehicle. Other than the short bed (which really isn’t a big deal 85% of the time), the Ridgeline is better.
Did you see the bed size and gas mileage?
I went overboard when I said “far more” utility. It really depends on what you need.
Though the Caddy’s bed is longer with the tailgate up, the Ridgeline has a much wider bed, and with the bed extender down, it’s longer too. Combined with a much higher load capacity and tow rating make it much more utilitarian than a Caddy.
Caddy-
41.5″ width between wheels
73″ length
Ridgline
49.5″ width between wheels
60″/79″ length (without/with bed extender down)
Hmm, I didn’t realize the VW bed was so narrow. However the Ridgeline bed width does not extend past the wheel wells. Combined with the sail panels, it is very cramped.
As far as the bed extender, that’s not standard equipment, and nothing that couldn’t be built for the VW with about $10 worth of lumber.
You’re never going to be able to get 47mpg in a Ridgeline, however!
They are still made – the Fiat Strada in Europe plus several in South America.
You would think that a version based off a B-segment car might be worthwhile, with a lower volume threshold than the 100,000 p.a. that I saw referred to by VW for bringing the Amarok to the USA.
I remember these quite well, though never owned one, nor rode in one either.
I can see why these never did as well, as pointed out, the cabs were too small, and sedan like to really work well here.
As to the Chryco Rampage/Scamp trucks, don’t see those much anymore. However, a couple of years or so ago, saw a very nice Rampage parked at a stall and was bright red with a white canopy (fiberglass at that I think) that looked almost new, or nicely restored. Anyway, being that they had the longer doors of their 3 door counterparts, looked to be a wiser choice here and I agree, they had better proportions than the VW Caddy truck, but I still kind of liked these anyway.
I still think the first gen Rabbits were the best of the Rabbit/Golf lot IMO.
Gutless car-based pickup trucks were marginally successful in the 1980’s, but that was a time when trucks were regarded as practical and utilitarian.
Today, trucks are symbols of power and wealth…the new “Platinum” F150 or King Ranch F350’s are obscenely expensive ($50-$70k), ridiculously powerful, and wasteful…and they’re the pinnacle of the truck industry, and they’re the highest option levels on the best selling trucks in the industry.
If VW brings the Amarok to the USA (and I suspect they will once the chicken tax tariff is removed), it will need to be fast. That’s the only way VW will be able to get big truck buyers to consider something that makes about 1000 times more sense than a giant Ford truck.
Truck no, thats a ute about as much use as a Datsun roadstar and similar sized.
VW made two major blunders when building this thing:
1. Not designing it with the longer doors of the two-door rabbit.
2. No GTI engine option.
Could you imagine one of these with the engine and suspension bits from a GTI? Now THAT would have been a real hoot!
Mine was one of the later ones – a pristine metallic grey pickup with a fancy fiberglass cap, and the garish, reflective “Sportruck” supergraphic down the flanks. Since the thing suffered from a bent crank, I located a GTi engine and dropped it in, changed the grille and a few interior bits, and had a lot of fun with it. The bigger engine did wake it up a bit, and made it more fun to drive. I ended up selling it to a friend who really wanted it, and I think he’s still got it today. At 6′ 4″, I was just a bit too tall to be comfortable in it . . .
Chevrolet sells the front wheel drive Tornado in Mexico. Volkswagen, Peugeot, and Renault all sell front wheel drive pickups or vans here. Also, the vocho, or beetle, is everywhere. They are very popular with the American ex-pat community. When we had internet service installed, the installer drove a vocho with an extension ladder on the roof. Trucks here are used for business, not as a lifestyle accessory.
These must have hit Subaru Brat sales, in 1979 they sold over 23,000 but by 81 it was down to 5,000. They got around the chicken tax by installing rear facing seats. Man those things were cool back in the day.
Was ’81 a short model year for the Brat? I know they went to the second gen for ’82, two years behind the other Subarus.
There are a few folks saying that a small truck would be a viable option for US customers, but I just don’t think we will ever get one. Great idea, however, we no longer view trucks as utilitarian. We require them fully loaded, with comfort as good or better than a sedan. They have to have 4 doors, not 2, and 4WD must be an option. FWD is not really acceptable, either. With that in mind, any of the small trucks available worldwide do not fit the bill, and any new product would just be a smaller version of one of the mid-size trucks already on the market. We know US OEMs do not understand how to make a smaller vehicle with a profit similar to the larger ones, so this just will never fly.
These only worked when one traded off comfort for utility. We don’t do that any more. We don’t accept that something to haul cargo may not haul ass, or asses, as performance and interior space was never a consideration for the originals but is a requirement for new trucks.
The Westmoreland, PA-built VWs had some very American engineering and design. For instance, the electrical systems-fuse box and wiring looms-were completely different from the German-built cars. Not better or worse, just unfamiliar to US VW techs at the time, which I was.
The gas engines were OK but I vaguely remember a carbureted version as a cheapo model. It sucked, and not in a good way. The (mostly) mechanical Jetronic injection engines were fairly powerful and reliable. Good handling cars. I agree that the pickup interior was ridiculously small.
Since a sliding back window was a popular dealer installed option, the parts department got overloaded with fixed glass window take outs. I took six or so of them home and made a really cool shelving unit with them.
> this may be a newer pickup built in another market, and then snuck across the border sometime in the past thirty years…
I think so. The side marker lamps, steering wheel, and dashboard seen here were never used on US-market trucks.
…and also the lack of rear side marker lights that all US models had
Hey, if you like FWD unibody pickups, rumor has it that then next-gen Ford Transit Connect will have a pickup cousin, sometime in 2022. Will it be called the Courier or Ranchero??
There are a lot of things that a pickup with whose bed is a scant foot off the ground would be really useful for, it’s a shame the market went 180 degrees in the other direction with increasingly high H-points necessitating increasingly high bed floors and increasingly Rube Goldberg tailgate steps, solutions to a problem which never should’ve existed in the first place.
Nice write-up. I see several in daily service around here (Portland OR). I’ve never seen their Doka and I guess VW knew it would never sell well here.
https://corvallis.craigslist.org/cto/d/lebanon-1991-vw-doka/6995278420.html