Look What's Parked Here - Volkswagen Caribe / Golf / Rabbit

Mexico is kinda like a Jurassic Park when it comes to cars. The typically dry climate (in many regions) and the total absence of frost makes it favorable to preserve old vehicles, and the numerous car enthusiasts love to raise classic cars to new levels, or just keep driving them in their original style. The latter is true for this gem of an oldie I saw not too far from where I live in Mexico City: a beautiful first generation (Mk1) of a Volkswagen Golf, a.k.a. Rabbit (in the US), or Caribe here in Mexico.

Does That Make Me Old?

Okay, I know, I just called this car an oldie, not fully grasping that that would also make me an oldtimer, since we're both from the same era. Though I can't say for sure when this particular model was made exactly, the Mexican Caribe with round headlights was produced from 1977 to 1980, which is also the time window I came to this world. And merely the fact that seeing this car even perked my interest, meaning that it stood out from the rest of parked vehicles, suggests that I recognized it as something special. So I better embrace it, along with my own age.

Yawn ... A Golf

To be completely honest, I never liked the Golf cars of either generation. Sure, when they first came out to replace the Beetle they were much loved by the public, especially in Germany where I grew up. It was actually the second generation Golf that my generation got to know as the car their parents would pick them up from school with (not me though), and in fact most of my friends learned to drive in one of them (again, not me). For me the Golf symbolized the lamentable switch to the sober angular lines of the 1980's after the crazy curvy counterculture (which I thought I had missed out on) had settled down into normality.

Check Out The Crazy Color!

Fast forward forty years (OMG!) and all this seems ridiculous to think about. Not only the thing about the counterculture, but the angular lines. I mean, behold the shape of the hood in relation to the distinct hatchback... Or am I now being just as subjectively irrational as in my youth, only coming from the opposite end? Probably. But then again, who cares? I'm rolling in nostalgia here, after all. And I can imagine the owner of this vehicle feels the same, since just about everything on this car is as it probably was when it rolled off the assembly line. Even the color of bright yellorange, which is more than stereotypically 70's. I sort of wished the seats to be also in the same brown - beige - red - orange - yellow color scheme associated with the 1970's. But I guess the simple gray was how it came out, so it's all right.

Personal Connections Everywhere

As it turns out, I am not the only person nostalgic about the Golf (which I never actually liked), but my wife as well. Because she even owned a Caribe herself, which was her first car, which she really really liked. Of course her reaction was pure joy when I pointed out the car to her. So we poured our nostalgia together, to the point where the Golf got raised to the same classic status as the Beetlebug. And from this angle, I fully agree that this post is well deserved.

For other interesting cars I saw parked in random places check out my Look What's Parked Here series.