son in law is a big truck diesel mechanics and says the old vw diesels are the best small diesels ever made. hes been looking and said good used low mile ones rarely show up for sale. he had one that was a rust bucket but had 200k on it and said it ran like new and with a light foot could get close to 50mpg Back in 1981, I bought my wife one of these...she enjoyed it very much while she owned it. It was nblack in color, and gas, rather than diesel engine.
https://www.hotcars.com/diesel-vw-rabbit-pickup-truck/
Some pull off the gas to diesel conversion...and some don't. When I got bthe little pickup, I learned that the engine was intentionally developed
with a strong enough crank/main bearing setup to handle diesel.
..But when working with farm equipment, I learned that Ford took that excellent 300cu in gas engine used in pickups, converted it to diesel and
put it in their large (for the time) model 6000 tractor. It almost cost them their farm equipment business.
Seems like Cadillac and Pontiac tried the same deal with a V8, but that didn't go over well either..
