Today there is a jubilee: since exactly 20 years I'm a K 70-driver. At the 19.July 1990 've bought my first own car.

congratulation

Annother ranking: the 10 biggest car-flops.
http://einestages.spiegel.de/external/ShowTopicAlbumBackground/a12101/l0/l0/F.ht- ml#featuredEntry

No K 70 - but a Skoda

Strage, that the Porsche 924 is included, as it was one of the most solid and best rust-protected cars of its time. The've chosen it for the weak engine of the basic model.

The first car a Oldsmobile 442 (I think 1972) and what is the second one? Then a '79 Trans Am? Then I should definitely know the last one but it is slipping me. Another question, it doesn't appear that the Trans Am or the last car have windshield wipers, am I missing something?

Florida, to be exact.

My sightings over the last few days.

* A '56' reg Morgan 4 seater
* One of those Old Volvos like the one in one of the posters avatar (Can't remember who)
* An Alfa Romeo MiTo with a Belgian numberplate.
* Volvo XC90 on Swiss plates registered from Volvo Zurich.

PV 544?

Can someone tell me this doesn't have windshield wipers? Are they hidden under the hood? What is going on??

Yes, like many cars of that period, the Pontiac Firebirds(including the Trans Ams) had windshield wipers hidden under the hood.

Nowadays I wonder what happened to features like that.

Yep. That's the one. It was red.

@ Ddey65 thanks!

Yesterday I saw a Toyota Corolla from the 90ies. Rare, because it was an US-version. Very strange was the fact, that it still had the US-lamp-combination. The lights were on and the front indicators were permanent on, too - normally this is forbidden in Germany.
Even more strange, because the car was going with that since many years. It had the old-style German plates, which weren't issued any more since December 2000.

A pic, specially shot today for 130rapid



Annother one for rljuna2, too. There you see three cars with the identical front-lamp-size, but different lamps.

Sorry, my K 70 in the background is not clearly visible.

The Rolls has H4-lamps, my K 70 H1 and the Polski Fiat probably Bilux. The lenses are quite rounded, so sealed beam-like. The company was "Valmot" or so? Have I read it correctly?

Ingo, I have been meaning to ask you was the K70 ever officially sold in the US? I didn't think so but Wikipedia says they were sold in North America from 1968-1973... I know I have never seen one!

on a side note I just got my second ever VW today (I used to have a 95 Passat GLS which was not such a good car) but today my neighbor was moving and asked me if I wanted his 1982 Rabbit Pickup. It is a diesel and has a 5-speed gearbox (it needs an engine but the body is Mint and he just gave it to me!!)

@t0nkatracker: no, it was never exported to Northern America (neither Canada, USA and Mexico). The official VW-statistics says, that one single K 70 was exported to the USA.

There was no specific US-version and no "made for USA"-parts.

Actually we know 3 K 70 running in the USA (1 in New Hampshire, 1 in South Dakota and 1 in New Jersey) and 1 in Canada (Toronto), all private imports. The white 1971 in South Dakota was brought from Farnkfurt by a retired GI in 2001, the Canadian K 70 was brought in the 70ies by a German family, which went there for some years for work.

And there is (Was? I haven't heard anything from him since many years) a K 70-engine in a private owned "Front-Wheel-Drive-Museum" in Brighton/Colorado. It's from a wrecked car, which came from Holland to the USA in the 80ies.

In the early 90ies a Dutch friend had a contact to an shop for aircooled VW-stuff in Houston/TX, whose owner shall own even 4 K 70. But when I went there at my autodriveaway-tour in 1993, it was closed due bankrupcy. So I couldn't find out, what happened with the cars.



About the Caddy: if you need help with parts, let me know. A friend of mine has a shop and restoration-garage for classic VW's, mainly aircooled, but also for the Golf I. He owned the oldest known existing Golf some years ago, I had the chance to buy it...
But I'm not sure about the differences between the US-made Caddy and that from Yugoslavia, which we had here. There are some single US-Caddies running in Germany, but officially there was never a spare-part-service for them.

From what was said some time ago, the Rabbit pickup and the Caddy are different cars, but I guess that they still have some Golf-sourced common parts?

1970 NSU Prinz 4 L:

@Antoine: the technic can me mainly identical, I think, but there were differences between the Golf I and the Rabbit, too. You you have to take care with organizing the parts.
The interior is nearly totally different.
10 years ago I've "inspected" an original 1979 US-Rabbit, I've found on a Swedish scrapyard. Nearly everything for different inside. Not only different - even disgusting. It was a light-blue-metallic car with dark green tinted windows and a -what a horror!- complete light-blue interior! Everything, incl. dashboard and seatbelts, was lightblue! In Germany we call this light-blue "müllsackblau", because it's the common colour for plastic garbage-bags. This car came directly from hell.


@Neon: a later, 1969+ one. Is it a speed-reduced version? Due the "80"-sticker on the back?

We had similar conversions in Germany, too. Since the 250 ccm micro-cars like the "small block" Isetta and the Goggomobil (built until 1969) disappeared, there were 250 ccm-conversion-kits for other cars available. For that a dozen of old workers has "survived" in the former Borgward-factory in Bremen until the 80ies (until Mercedes Benz took the plant for making the 190 [W201]). These old guys have manufactured Goggo-engines (with an old Glas-licence).

Mostly the NSU Prinz 4 was converted, also Fiat 500, Fiat 126 and a handful of other small cars.

It was made for the last people, who had -had only- a pre-1950 motorbike-license. With that you were allowed to drive all kind of vehicles up to 250 ccm. Last year this ancient regulation was cancelled. Since then every owner of such a license (who never made the actual car-license later on) was allowed to drive "real" cars. I don't know, how many people were involved, maybe a few dozen, not more.
How easy it's to get a real drivers-license. Just wait for 60 years.


These 250 ccm-converted vehicles are nowadays disappeared. 20 years ago I saw the last, also a Prinz 4, on the road. They mostly had ridicoulus low mileage, but noone wanted to have them. Some were brought back in the original condition, many were just thrown away.
Nowadays there is the opinion, that they are a kind of historic relict and worth to keep, but to drive them is really disgusting. Incdredible lame, loud, stinky and horrifying thirsty. No wonder, as you have to drive "digtal", just for getting a bit movement.

No it's 598cc

Reading on some italian forums, they say that the "80" sticker (along with the 60 and 110) must be applied on the rear of the class of vehicles that were not very fast, for indicate to the others drivers "don't be angry if i drive slowly, this car is not very fast"

For example: For the slowest cars like the 500 the owners had to apply the "60" sticker, on the a bit faster cars like the 850 or the Prinz the "80" sticker and on the fastest cars (1100, 131, ecc) the "110" sticker

I hope that you have understood

Hmmm, perhaps I should ask the guy in my street, if he need one sticker. He has a 850 Coupé - but in original Abarth-trim.