Used Car of the Day: 1984 Volkswagen Rabbit GTI

by Tim Healey

Published: August 14th, 2023

used car of the day 1984 volkswagen rabbit gti

We're going hatchback today with this 1984 Volkswagen Rabbit GTI.

This car has a manual transmission and the seller, who has owned the car for six years, says it appears the mileage is accurate at 164K and that it appears the car has been well maintained and hasn't needed a major service.

The seller says the interior has been restored and has the original radio player, but the A/C is not connected and the rear wiper doesn't work.

Apparently, the body is rust-free. The seller says there is a box of spare parts, and the car is all stock except for a Neuspeed upper strut bar and Euro-style bumpers.

This Maryland-based ride is on sale for $10,500. Click here to check it out.

[Images: Seller]

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#VW #Volkswagen #UCOTD #1984VolkswagenRabbit #1984VolkswagenRabbitGTI #GTI #UsedCars #VolkswagenRabbit #Rabbit

Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

More by Tim Healey

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3 of 24 comments

Golden2husky on Aug 15, 2023

This is the very model that turned me on to the joys of driving a car that actually handled well. Thank you to my older brother for lending it to me for 2 months when he was in Nepal back in the day!

2 Reply
- FreedMike on Aug 15, 2023
  
  This. The O.G. GTI wasn't fast by any means (well, it was by 1983 standards), but it was an absolute joy to drive hard. It was light and tossable, and offered the kind of direct, unfiltered road feel that you just don't get much of today. I'd love to have one.
  
  1
Wjtinfwb on Aug 15, 2023

Nostalgia is a wonderful thing... allows us to remember times and things much more fondly than was the actual experience. I get chills every time I see a '79 Trans Am. Then remember what a horrendous owner experience it was and that a Honda Odyssey would leave it in the dust today. Same with these GTI's, the PA built VWs were between awful and terrible, depending on your definition. And the GTI's, while better in their day than most anything else (Escort GT, anyone?), they're pretty miserable compared to a more modern day ride. If you're buying to relive your childhood, great. If you're buying because you remember it being a fantastic car...

1 Reply
- Carroll on Aug 15, 2023
  
  So true, the pitfalls of nostalgia.
  
  Like

Recent Comments

Wjtinfwb Nice car and looks well cared for. The accessories are mostly for vanity, their value is in the eye of the buyer. I see zero value in them but I like bone stock if buying used. The problem this seller has is his spec is not at all unique; not a manual, no Shaker hood, attractive, but conservative color. Today, AutoTrader has 130 used 2015-2018 Challenger Hemi's with automatics available. The average price is abut 27,200 and mileage is slightly lower than this example at about 40k miles. Almost all are at dealers where a decent negotiator should be able to knock $1500-2500 off the ask. This is a 25k car, the buyer may not believe it but stats would say otherwise.
FreedMike I don't need to know anything about this model per se, but I'd be very interested in knowing if Mazda is going to be using the tech from the PHEV CX-90/70 model - which is darned nice, by the way - on other Mazdas.
Turbo Is Black Magic Honestly at this point Elon is more of a liability than an asset. How much does the board have to pay to just get rid of him?
FreedMike The article touches on this fact, but the number of public EV chargers grew by over 18,000 between 2021 and 2023. https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity-infrastructure-trendsSo clearly the expansion is happening without the use of the funds in question. Not necessarily a bad thing, if you're into not using taxpayer money. Still, I'd be interested in knowing why the public money isn't being used. Are the regs overly complex or restrictive, or something like that? But in any case, EV charging IS expanding at a pretty solid rate. And as far as "...we’ve seen plenty of Republican-backed legislation targeting EV-related spending over the last couple of years" is concerned...well, yeah, there's a reason why Republicans don't like EV charging. The petroleum industry is one of the GOP's prime donors, and every charger built or EV sold represents a direct ding to their bottom line. Republicans, of course, like to put this in terms of "EVs are a woke mind virus," or some such nonsense, but the fact is that the people paying their bills don't want competition.
28-Cars-Later When its discontinued.