I had a 77 vw rabbit. Four on the floor. Very basic car. My base Fit reminds me a lot of the rabbit I had. The driving characteristics are very similar and it is just a very basic fun to drive car. The vw got excellent gas mileage too. I was 16 years old and I put a lot of miles on it, it had over a 100,000 when I got it. We sold it to a neighbor after I drove it for a year and I got a 79 Toyota Corolla SR-5 liftback that had a few less miles, it was a great car too.

 

I had an '83 Rabbit GTi....it came with a staggering 90 HP. But it probably weighed less that 2000 lbs. and was capable of outrunning cars with twice the power (especially if the road got twisty). It was a blast to drive, but came with the usual annoying VW electrical gremlins and a leak that could not be fixed. I replaced it with a CRX Si when it came out, another small, light car that was a blast to drive.

 

I also had a 77 Rabbit, but mine was a diesel. That car got incredible mileage, usually around 55 mpg. And back then diesel was under a buck a gallon. Had a CRX Si too. That car was awesome. I wish they still made it.

 

Hope the Fit goes into reverse consistently. Once my '78 Rabbit got older, it would almost never stay in reverse but would pop out. It was always a challenge to find a pull-through parking spot or one with a hill so you could roll out of the space.

 

Interesting you would compare it to the '77 Rabbit. I never got a chance to drive the vintage model, but I did get a '97 Golf when they came out. It was much heavier than the Fit and felt darker inside. It was a good car, but the VW gremlins previously mentioned got to it. My Golf was "made in Mexico" and had serious electrical issues, strange leaks, probelms with the power locks, and only made it to 70,000 miles before it got way too expensive to keep up versus buying the Fit. VW really doesn't make them like they used to... especially when they come from the outsourced Mexico plant.

I like the Fit more and more as I drive it. Simple, economical, and eye catching... really fun to drive. I guess it is the Rabbit of the future.

 

That's funny - that's the car I learned how to drive on. Loved it; the 4-speed was always a hell of a lot of fun. Though it had plenty of electronic gremlins as well (as do current VWs made in the Fatherland), so I think the comment about Mexican production is a little misplaced.

And have a crx si as well, of course. Get 'em before they're gone!

 

My little vw was mechanically reliable but did have the electrical problems. I remember it blowing fuses all the time. I remember the fuses looking like little grub worms. I think the Fit is the rabbit of the future, and it being a Honda gives me a lot of confidence in it. I can see 250,000 miles on them easy.

 

that there are several on here who would have to be around the same age from the replies on the VW rabbit. I think that those early experiences with small, agile, fuel efficient cars might be responsible for our affinity to the Fit. I know the older I get the more I think back about them days in the late seventies and early eighties, the cars we had and such. I was driving home this morning and was thinking about it. Back the cars did not have clocks, the radios had the buttons that you had to pull out and push back in to set the stations to preset. You had a tuning knob and scale type station selection. Cars mostly did not come with cruise control, no such thing as anti-lock brakes, no tilt or telescoping steering wheels, nothing digital, no cool backlighting of guages...they all pretty much looked alike. You had to twist a crank to open the windows...no electric door locks or keyless entry. Cars have come a long way just since then.

 

But did any of you have the crank-open sunroof (which of course leaked)?

 

It had a handle that you pulled down on and then pushed up, and yeah it leaked badly, lot of slicone applied over time.

 

My parents bought a 77 4-door Rabbit new. I was too young to drive, but a lot of times I drove from the passenger seat. I remember that car having serious shakes and rattles along with lots of problems, mostly the fuel injection. But my dad liked how it drove. It was quick for the time.

What kind of mileage were you non-diesel Rabbit owners getting?

 

but it has been a long time. I know it was a long way between full and empty, and a pretty good ways between 1/4 tank and empty.

 

My Rabbit had one option, FM radio. No tape, just AM/FM and a single speaker in the middle of the dash. No A/C, no power anything, and I loved it. I bought it for $350 and put 50k pizza delivery miles on it, then sold it for $500 when I moved to AZ (no A/C lol). The only work I ever did on it was duct tape some rot through on the underside of the body and put a bungee cord on the grille. It broke loose on me while I was doing some mud bogging.

 

LOL! I see a pattern here!
I am not as "old" (born in '71), but in early '90's my best buddy and his crew had Rabbits and I had a CRX Si! We loved both to death. We loved switching cars among drivers. Rabbit had torque and CRX had rpms! Different driving style required! Guys were so in tune with what VW parts to combine (diesel down pipe, head from another year, tranny from yet another model,.....) to create a kick ass quick car! One guy actually got a '78 custom (lightest chassis ever at about 1850lbs!) and proceeded to lighten it to the max by building his wire harness from scratch eliminating everything he did not care for like wiper motors and vipers! Plexiglas instead of glass! He even used hole saw to drill holes in areas that had no structural function. Now that car was fast! By baddie's car was quick too, but appeared to be bone stock. He even street dragged against Steda Mustang with a blower and kicked his ass almost entire quarter mile and lost at the line! Everybody was shit faced in attendance!
We mostly drove Mulholland and it's tributaries past 1am. Got our share of adrenaline and paid dearly along the way. Eventually we ended up autoX-ing and doing great, but lack of money for competition tires made it impossible to challenge for outright victories. We were consistently up top even on street tires though.
Life is unpredictable, but decades latter almost all of us from back then are driving Hondas! Guy with the lightest Rabbit ended up getting an Insight! My best buddy is present on this very forum driving a Fit!

I think that main reason Rabbit and Fit drivers are the same is the down to earth attitude and minimalistic approach to a car concept. We value mileage, room, hatch and keep it simple stupid approach.
I love the company guys!

My buddies Rabbit:




I knew back then that I would be regretting for the rest of my life if I part from my CRX, so I set on a mission to hang on to it! I still have it! After spending years parked in a garage attached to a trickle charger I am about to resurrect it for AutoX and track use. WRX turbo going in it courtesy of my friend!


Guys, if you have your early ride, hang on to them. It is a trip down memory lane. Purely mechanical experience! you actually need a wrench and not a laptop to tune it!

Ivan

 

I agree, but by the numbers the car this takes me back to is the 1985 GTI. 2400 lbs, 110 HP. 0-60 in 9.0 and a ton of fun. We had one that ran 250,000 miles at was a blast from the first mile to the last.

 

My Fit takes me back here:



The Civic has grown bigger and more luxurious than old Accords. I like the Fit as a return to something small, (relatively) lightweight, inexpensive, and fun!

P.S. My old 70s Civic had a curb weight of 1630 lbs, so even my Fit is a relative porker at 2604 lbs. Similarly, one of my old Accords weighed 2150 lbs. Those days are history.

 

The economy is returning to where it was when them small cars came to be here. Look up Kei cars on google images and see the future. They will get here. I have seen where Nissan is bringing the Cube here, you should check it out. Small is about to come back here in a BIG way.

 

It is ok. We all get old. I am the op and I am 40, you ain't far behind me. Sounds like you were enjoying your youth in Cali, I was in deep south Alabama.

 

We were not at all well off. I now know how lucky I was to have parents that helped me get a car, any car. My Daddy had driven that Rabbit back and forth to Morgan City, La. where he was working 21 days on and seven off just to keep us afloat for a couple of years when I turned sixteen. He gave me the Rabbit and let me work to make payments and he started driving my mother's old Datsun station wagon back and forth. He got my Mother another Datsun station wagon, it was fancy...it had an automatic transmission. It was the first car we had ever had with and auto trans.

This one guy in town that went to school with me was a couple of years older than me and was from an affluent family got a new 1983 GTI, black with the red accents. After having the rabbit and knowing what a GTI was I thought he had the coolest car in the world. Now down here in the deep south, if it was not a ford or a chevy or a Pontiac...it was not shit. So other better off kids got Camaro's, Trans Ams, even Corvettes...but if I could have had any car in the world it would have been that GTI. I still think about it.

 

I'm familiar with the Cube. It's in the same class, though, as the Fit (2500lbs 90HP). Perhaps, I should have said that those days are a long ways off, although you can clearly see a switch in demand to smaller cars. I don't think many Americans would consider a Kei car until gas hits a comparable $10 a gallon. Even then, I think most people would choose a hybrid or electric by then.