Joining the VW lineup just before the Golf, and being the first launched of VW’s current lineup of modern, economical front wheel drive cars, the VW Passat must have seemed scary for the company at the time. So far, VW had been very conservative, sticking to its lineup of flat-4 powered, rear-engine rear-wheel-drive, air-cooled cars, but given the complaints from the public about the ancient technology upon which their cars were based, they were forced to do something drastic. Imagine any major car company changing their whole platform strategy today – suppose BMW dropped all their six-cylinder engines, and went to front-wheel-drive, turbocharged four cylinders as their dominant powertrain – it’s really a pretty remarkable move. Of course, VW held on to the old Beetle-based cars for six more years in Europe, US/Canada and Asia, and continued far further in Mexico and down through Brazil, as well as South Africa and doubtless others. Check out VW’s first successful (you wouldn’t call the K70 successful or VW’s, would you?) foray into conventional powertrains here with this 1979 VW Dasher for sale for an unknown price that can’t be more than $1000, right?
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Rusty But Trusty 