CAPTAIN MORGAN

From the very beginning of the Volkswagen Westmoreland Factory near New Stanton, Pennsylvania, Morgan Barclay was part of the team that assembled the assembly line, that built and painted the paint line, and produced the very first, and some of the very last Rabbits, at the famous American factory. From 1978 until 1987, it is claimed that VW produced some 1.15 million vehicles in the North American plant.

Now, 40 years later, a man’s lifetime of experience, work, and skills have been poured into the car you see before you. This is the story of Morgan, and his very custom Mk1 Rabbit, ‘Rommel’.

The rebirth of this particular car started just like many other old car stories do, as Morgan explains, “A good friend caught sight of this Rabbit sitting waiting to be crushed at a local junkyard..”. The lowly diesel Rabbit had more than it’s fair share of miles and rust, but luckily Morgan’s mate "made a deal for a few dollars and took it home". Now, 72-year-old Morgan is not a random VW friend - he literally worked at the VW Rabbit factory before the place even had floors or walls, so when said friend asked for a hand decoding the VIN. Morgan was delighted to find that “the car was one of the last cars that I had helped assemble during my tenure at the Westmoreland Plant, and I immediately tried to buy it - but my friend couldn’t decide what he wanted to do with it”.