Island: Isle au Haut
Vehicle: 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit
Owner: Bill and Jenny Chamberlin
Mileage: Odometer broken, probably less than 90,000
“This is a photo of my wife, Jenny, and me, with our 1981 VW Rabbit diesel on the Town Landing at Isle au Haut,” wrote Bill Chamberlin.
“Standard procedure when arriving on island is to back down and load baggage into the car. Unfortunately our kids are not in the picture. Daughter, Sarah and her husband live in Boise, Idaho and son, Sam, lives in Rockport, Maine. (He is a designer for Rockport Marine.) When I was visiting Sarah a couple of weeks ago and she took me somewhere in her husband’s standard-shift Subaru, she reminded me that she had learned standard shift on the Rabbit and hardly driven one since.
“The open door on the car in the photo is the only on which both the inside and outside latches still work. Others can only be opened from one side or the other. That seems to be this year’s deterioration. But diesel keeps on clattering along quite well.
“We bought the car new in 1981. It was our mainland car in Boston for
10 years and then came out here in 1991 and has started right up every summer since. It handles the dirt roads of the island fine. Just have stay up on the crest of the road you keep from scraping off the bottom.
“The headliner fell down so the kids took it out. Now when it rains you feel like you are in a tin can being pelted with marbles. Each year another of the functions like radio or wipers, headlights, odometer (it is somewhere less than 90,000 miles) or defroster doesn’t work, but the diesel engine just keeps rattling on.
“I buy 10 gallons of diesel per summer. When we had the car on mainland in the 1980s we once drove the family of four from Boston to Florida for $10 worth of diesel.
“Both of our kids learned to drive on the Rabbit here on the island before they were 16 and eligible to get licenses. They also had a number of friends (they are all now in the early 30s) who were delighted to be allowed to practice their hill starts with the Rabbit on the island. Hill starts were required for at least Massachusetts’s drivers licenses in those years and no one’s parents had standard shift cars to learn on. So the kids used to let their friends perfect their hill starts with our car.”
Tell us about your island vehicle. Send photos of you and your vehicle, and a description, to David Tyler, editor, Working Waterfront, P.O. Box 648, Rockland, ME 04841. Or send an e-mail to: dtyler@islandinstitute.org.