To round out my trifecta of A1s over the past two days, I thought we’d look at one that ironically brought the biggest smile to my face. It’s not because it’s the high performance model, nor is it because it’s in the best condition. What appeals to me about this Rabbit is the simplicity and the originality of it; a preserved time capsule from less complicated times. As I read about the recall of every car with an airbag ever made, I couldn’t help but ponder how complicated building and engineering cars has become. Not only do automakers need to provide a means of transportation, they need to calculate nearly risk factors, buy and install sub-contracted components that hopefully are made to specification and deliver a car to market that performs flawlessly, reliably, and economically. They need to dress these cars with the most modern conveniences; cars today read your mail, open your doors, tell you how much traffic is directly around you, how to avoid potential traffic in the future and can even tell when you’re getting sleepy. If you think about it, it’s pretty insane. Then, you see something like this Rabbit L. It’s small, not particularly safe in a crash, not particularly luxurious, you have to do almost everything while driving it, and it will probably break. But it has a lot of character, and character is something I love:
