[Vwdiesel] Diesel engine in Karmin Ghia VW

[William J Toensing]

Engine swaps are way above my area of expertise. However last year at the Hudson national meet I saw a very interesting engine swap. Someone grafted a front wheel drive unit from a V-6 Dodge/Chrysler minivan. on to the chassis of a 1947 Hudson. He then mounted the minivan rear axel which is a streight axel where the rear axel was. Looked like it was simpiler than matching an engine to an old drive train, engineering new linkages, brackets, etc for power disk brakes, air conditioning steering, etc.  I don't know if this would be practical to mount a Karmin Ghia body on to a Rabbit chassis. You would have to do lots of measuring. 
One of the reasons I wanted to get in this group is I have noticed a number of you live in Europe. I am sure cars get wrecked & totaled there as they do in the USA. My daily driver is a 2001 Ford Focus ZX3. In Europe you can get a diesel option for the Focus but you can't in our "So called free country", the USA. I wonder what one could buy a good used Focus diesel engine plus the necessary brackets & components in Europe for a conversion of a USA Focus to a diesel engine. My Focus gets 26 to 28 MPG on gas whereas the European diesel Focus can get 50 MPG.  I have one 1947 Hudson with out an engine & doing a similar engine swap looks interesting to me but if I was to do an engine swap I would like to install a front wheel diesel engine setup in my '47 Hudson similar to the one I saw at the Hudson national meet last summer. I live in Nevada City, CA about 60 miles NE of Sacramento.