Car Spotlight- Volkswagen Fox (1987-1993)

Look at that Foxy car!
photo credit- germancarforum.com

The year was 1999, I was six year old at the time.  I just finished playing a T-Ball game.  I can't remember if my team won or lost (nor did I care, since I just played with the infield sand most of the time anyway).  My dad and I were walking through the parking lot when I saw what I thought was a VW Jetta.  I asked my dad what he thought of "that Jetta over there."  He took one look at it and said that it wasn't a Jetta, but "one of those crappy VW Foxes."  Right as he said that, this really tall guy walking toward it stopped and gave us this really nasty look.  We then jumped into our '91 Camry and took off.

Sixteen years later, I looked back at what happened that day and thought to myself "What was so bad about the Volkswagen Fox that gave my dad that conclusion?"  If it was so bad that my non-car guy father would even have a negative opinion about it, then there MUST be something interesting about this thing...

Well...I'm nowhere near my dad as I'm writing this, so I can't really ask his opinion, so you could say I'm not going anywhere with this....


ANYWAYS...

The Fox was imported to the States from Brazil (where it was known as the Gol), and it sat at the bottom of the VW totem pole.  Some might argue that it was the spiritual successor to the original Beetle, because like the Beetle, the Fox was a very basic car.  There was no automatic transmission, power steering, and in the early days, no glovebox (although a lot of these things were options on other cars as well).

There were three versions of the Fox available during it's six year run, a 4-door sedan, a 2-door coupe, and a 2-door wagon (why there was no 4-door wagon is beyond me).  Maybe there was a door shortage at the factory?  While I thought a 2-door wagon was a pretty neat concept, not many people felt the same way, as the wagon was axed after 1990.

A VW Fox "shooting brake"
photo credit-germancarsforsaleblog.com

*side note, two door wagons are actually common in Europe, and called "shooting brakes" (because they were ideal for hunting)

One of several internet memes that poke
fun at VW's engine problems
source- quick memes

Now, going back to whether or not the Fox was a lousy car...yes it was...but then again, neither was any other VW from the late 80s to the early 2000s.  This is because car manufacturing got very expensive in Germany, so VW outsourced a large portion of it's North American production to Mexico and Brazil, where it was cheaper to not only build and ship the cars, but also cheaper to pay the workers.  A consequence of this was the build quality also became "cheap,"  as several VW cars were plagued with peeling paint, body panels that would fall off, and engine issues that were difficult to diagnose.  In fact, the engine issues were so common that there were several internet memes that would go along the lines of  "if your VW's engine light is off, then there's something wrong with it."

In the case of the Fox, it was just the sheer fact that it was the "bottom of the line car".  The reason why it lacked so many options and was made of cheap materials was to keep the sticker price down.

The ownership experience of the Fox is relatively mixed.  There were some who praised it for it's simplicity, good milage, and overall "being fun to drive." Others lamented it for it's build quality, poor fit and finish, and underpowered engine (although my argument for that is why would you buy it if it was too slow?)

During the Fox's "run", VW sold about 174,000 sedans and wagons (source) .  By 1992, Foxes began to collect dust on the VW lots, and was eventually erased from the lineup in 1993. (perhaps due to the fact it looked too similar to the Jetta)

Aside from that one time at the baseball field, I haven't really seen any VW Foxes around (or maybe I have, but kept confusing them for a Jetta.)  Considering the fact that I haven't seen any in recent memory pretty much tells me how reliable they were.