This Swiss-Themed VW Rabbit Ad Campaign Is Weirder Than You Think

You know what America couldn’t get enough of in the late 1970s? Switzerland! Man, we had Swissmania! Perforated cheeses, chocolate shaped like a big extruded series of triangles, watches and wooden ornate avian-themed clocks and clandestine bank accounts and chalets and all that swisshit. We were all Swiss-miscreants! Remember that? No? Because it wasn’t so much a thing? Is that why? Speak up, I can’t hear you over all this internet.

Okay, maybe Swiss-themed pop culture wasn’t a huge thing in the late ’70s, but that didn’t stop Volkswagen from making a Swiss-themed series of ads for the American market in 1979. Maybe “series” is a little generous, because it just seems to be one print ad and one television commercial.

Here’s the print ad:

…and here’s the television spot, which adds in the extra element of a really big dog:

I’ll admit, I’m always a little disappointed when I see a St.Bernard without one of those collars with the little barrel full of booze.

The basic story checks out here: the Volkswagen Rabbit (well, it would have been called the Golf there in Europe, more on that in a moment) was indeed the best-selling car in Switzerland in 1978, and actually was the best seller since 1975, the first full year of Golf sales, displacing the Opel Kadett.

So that part all checks out, if we accept that the Rabbit is just a re-named Golf, which it mostly is, but not exactly. Which is where this ad starts getting a little weird.

You see, the Rabbit shown in that ad there is not what would have been sold in Switzerland, which, again, would have been a Golf, and is in fact a Westmoreland, Pennsylvania-built Rabbit, which is already a little odd, but it gets even weirder.

So, for reference, these are what Westmoreland-built Rabbits looked like in 1979:

That front end, with the rectangular headlights and the large 5 mph self-restoring, energy-absorbing bumpers and those funny little vertical side marker lamps, were unique to Westmoreland-built Rabbits that were sold in North America. These never went to Europe. This is what European Golfs of this era looked like:

There are a few obvious differences, of course: the round headlights are the most obvious one, but there’s also the lack of side marker lamps and the smaller (and, let’s be honest, less capable), Euro-spec bumpers that US enthusiasts seem to love. Oh, and the Euro Golf didn’t have the chrome hubcaps of the US-spec ones, and, I’m told, they had some better interior materials.

But here’s the really weird part: look at the car VW used for these Swiss-themed ads again:

See what’s going on there? It seems to be a Westmoreland-built Rabbit, but for some reason has Euro-spec smaller bumpers? As far as I’ve ever been aware, this particular configuration was never offered for sale, anywhere, in any market. I think the only one might have been made for these ads?

But now I have to ask why. I suppose I understand why they used a US-spec Rabbit as a stand-in for the real Swiss Golf for these ads, because VW would have wanted the car to match what they were selling in the US. But if that’s the case, why change the bumpers to the Euro-spec style?

It makes no sense; VW would have had to deliberately swapped those bumpers out, which would have taken at least some time and resources, so why would they have chosen to do that? What did they stand to gain here? Did they want to make it look sorta European, but still recognizable as the same car that would be in US showrooms?

I’m really baffled. This just doesn’t actually make any sense. I’m open to theories!

Photo: VW