The diesel Rabbit Pickup's 5th gear was labeled 'E' for Economy, and at a steady 35 mph, testers measured a genuinely absurd 57.6 mpg out of a pickup truck.
Median 71 hp across 68 similar cars
Lead trim: 1.5 EA827 (69 PS, international) · up to 78 hp
Volkswagen Caddy / Rabbit Pickup14 · 1979–1995
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Nobody in Burbles has spotted a Volkswagen Caddy / Rabbit Pickup yet. See one on the street, point the app at it, and the first card is yours — with your @handle permanently credited on this page.
FactThe diesel Rabbit Pickup's 5th gear was labeled 'E' for Economy, and at a steady 35 mph, testers measured a genuinely absurd 57.6 mpg out of a pickup truck.
The first Caddy, released in 1979 as a coupé-utility and van on the Volkswagen Group A1 platform of the Golf Mk1, began as a Volkswagen of America project led by Duane Miller, who designed a pickup with a 1.83 m bed in partnership with Sheller Globe. As the Volkswagen Rabbit Pickup it was built at the Westmoreland Assembly Plant in Pennsylvania from 1978 to 1984 (trim levels LX and Sportruck) and sold in the US from late 1979 for the 1980 model year, with rectangular headlamps where the rest of the world got round ones. It competed with the Ford Courier, Datsun Truck, Toyota Hilux, Dodge Rampage and Subaru BRAT. North America first had a 1.6-litre petrol, joined in 1980 by a 1.5-litre diesel, later a 1.6 diesel (52 hp) whose five-speed gearbox had an "Economy" fifth gear of 0.76:1, and a 1.7 petrol (78 hp). The "Caddy" name was first used when it reached Europe in 1982, built at TAS in Sarajevo from 1982 to 1992 (and in Uitenhage, South Africa, from 1981 to 2007); a fibreglass cap turned it into a small panel van. More than 207,000 were built worldwide. VW sold a rebadged Toyota Hilux as the Taro from 1989 to 1997, and the Caddy name continued from 1995 as a smaller van and MPV developed with Škoda and SEAT.
Collectors Spotted in the Volkswagen Caddy Lineage
No member has published a public street spot of the Volkswagen Caddy yet — the First · Worldwide stamp is wide open.
Trims & Figures
6 published trims in the catalogue. A blank is a figure not recorded, not zero.
| Trim | Years | Engine | Power | Torque | 0–60 | Drive | Gearbox | MSRP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.5 EA827 (69 PS, international) | 1979–1984 | 1.5 L Inline-4 | 68 hp | 81 lb-ft | — | FWD | — | — |
| 1.5 diesel (48 hp, North America) | 1980–1980 | 1.5 L Inline-4 | 48 hp | 56.5 lb-ft | — | FWD | — | — |
| 1.6 EA827 (75 PS, international) | 1979–1984 | 1.6 L Inline-4 | 74 hp | 92 lb-ft | — | FWD | — | — |
| 1.6 diesel EA827 (52 hp, North America) | 1981–1984 | 1.6 L Inline-4 | 52 hp | 71.5 lb-ft | — | FWD | — | — |
| 1.6 fuel-injected (78 hp, North America 49-state) | 1979–1980 | 1.6 L Inline-4 | 78 hp | 84.1 lb-ft | — | FWD | — | — |
| 1.7 fuel-injected (78 hp, North America 49-state) | 1981–1984 | 1.7 L Inline-4 | 78 hp | 88.2 lb-ft | — | FWD | — | — |
Owning one
We don’t estimate running costs for a car like this. What it costs depends on its condition, its specialist and how it is driven, and an average would mislead.
Owners’ builds
Nobody has claimed one yet.
Photographs
This Caddy quietly became the blueprint for a Ford: in 2021 the Ford Tourneo Connect launched as a rebadged version of it, the first fruit of the Ford-Volkswagen partnership.
The Typ 2K Caddy looks like a van, but under the skin half its parts come straight off the Golf Mk5 and Touran.
The first Caddy van wasn't designed by Volkswagen at all -- VW handed the job to its Spanish subsidiary SEAT, who built it off the SEAT Ibiza's platform instead of a VW.
The diesel Rabbit Pickup's 5th gear was labeled 'E' for Economy, and at a steady 35 mph, testers measured a genuinely absurd 57.6 mpg out of a pickup truck.
Rivals
Same body, same money, other badges — tap any card to flip.
Chevy pitched the Astro as the anti-minivan, telling buyers life was too big for one, while it rode on a rear-wheel-drive truck frame.
The IIHS rated the Astro Poor in a 1996 crash test, yet 2001–2004 Astros later had the lowest driver death rate of any US passenger vehicle.
The boxy, unglamorous Astro quietly posted one of the best real-world safety records in America: IIHS found 2001-2004 models had the fewest driver deaths per million vehicles of any passenger vehicle on US roads.
The third-generation Tourneo Connect, released in Europe in October 2021, is a rebadged fourth-generation Volkswagen Caddy, assembled by Volkswagen in Poland.
Ford beat the 25% "chicken tax" by importing the Transit Connect as a passenger van — rear windows and seats included, then stripped out and recycled once it landed in the US.
Ford spent years in federal court over the second-gen Transit Connect: in June 2019 the US won its appeal, and judges ruled the van was cargo-only — ending Ford's workaround for the 'chicken tax.'
GM sold a rebadged Nissan NV200 as the Chevy City Express for four years, then killed it in 2018, citing weak sales and the fact that its parts weren't even compatible with GM's own parts catalog.
Its name is a pun: "S-Cargo" means "Small Cargo" but sounds just like escargot — French for snail, the shape the whole van was built to resemble.