Name That Car Clock: VDO Analog With Fuel and Temperature Gauges

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

Yesterday, we saw a majestic Cartier chronometer out of a ’76 Lincoln Continental Mark IV, which was a pretty easy call for many of you. Today’s NTCC contestant should be a little more difficult, though it should be an obvious call to certain single-marque-obsessed types. Make your guess, then make the jump to see what it is. Year/make/model?

1984 Volkswagen Golf Wolfsburg Edition

The VDO name indicates that it’s probably from something European, and the built-in gas and temp gauges smack of VW-ness. It’s a bit subdued for the mid-1980s, but VW never went for Mitsubishi-grade wild gauges. Did you get it right? If not, what did you think it was?



Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • Ciddyguy Ciddyguy on Mar 01, 2012

    Saw the Cartier clock post but somehow missed this one and I'm not the only one who did. I have known that VDO gauges were used in VW's for years, going back to at least the 60's. Back when the Beetle (old one that is) were still manufactured, the speedo had the idiot lights and the one, lone turn signal indicator within it's confines but later in the late 60's IIRC, they incorporated the gas gauge in at the bottom with the 3 idiot lights right above it. My best friend once had a base '77 Rabbit that had no clock or tach, just the large, single speedo and i think it had the gas gauge incorporated within, all other idiot lights were large rectangular things along one side, including the SINGLE turn signal indicator. That was a neat little 3 door bright yellow rabbit and the only options was the Golde hand cranked sunroof (broken, a stripped gear) and perhaps the AM radio was the only other option and it even had the basic argent wheels with the black rubber center caps. Sadly, he had issues with it and sold it off (this WAS bought used in the mid to late 80's but it looked really nice otherwise) and that owner took it to LA and it got totaled I think on the way or while down there.

  • Joeaverage Joeaverage on Mar 04, 2012

    The square headlights indicate this is a Westmoreland, PA Rabbit and those cars were "adjusted" for American consumption. In other other words they were slightly more bland vehicles compared to their European cousins. I had an '84 Rabitt 'vert and it came with tach, speedo, digital clock, oil temp and oil pressure, water temp, and volts. Much more stylish. ;) Sold that car with 190K miles on it and the car had alot of miles left in it. Regularly drove it on the autostrada at 100+ mph for hours. It was an American spec, Germany produced car that I owned in Italy.

  • TheMrFreeze That new Ferrari looks nice but other than that, nothing.And VW having to put an air-cooled Beetle in its display to try and make the ID.Buzz look cool makes this classic VW owner sad 😢
  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
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