How-To: adapt a Volvo 240 leather shift boot into a Rabbit

[v8volvo]

For the longest time, the biggest blemish in my car's interior was the shifter boot. The tan vinyl boot was an ugly design to begin with, and after 25 years it was dirty and ripped, making it even uglier. Most of them I see in Rabbits are like that, and the colors (red, black, or gray) are just horrible. I eventually just tore the boot out of the car completely, but it wasn't much better having the bare metal stick and mechanism exposed for everyone to see. I had been thinking about swapping in a GTI or Cabrio console and shift boot, but I didn't like that design either.

Well, a few weeks ago I picked up an old basket case Volvo 240 wagon (diesel!). It was the luxury GL version, so it had both the normal black ribbed rubber Volvo shift boot, and then a nice additional leather shift boot covering that. Who needs two shift boots? I began to have an idea

Turns out, the Volvo 240 leather shift boot is *exactly* the right size, shape, and design to be adapted to the shifter surround piece on a Rabbit. The leather boot has a plastic piece in the bottom of it, which you can attach with a little epoxy to the metal rectangular ring that snaps into the VW surround (the one that originally held the ugly vinyl boot in). Then just un-snap the upper part of the boot, slide it down over the shifter, and snap the newly affixed VW metal piece back into the surround with the base of the Volvo boot attached to it. It looks like it was meant to be there from Day 1.





This really improved the look of the whole interior. The black leather boot looks good, but in a classy, tasteful way. It doesn't look like a modification at all -- looks like it was built that way. Highly recommended. You can find these leather boots in any Volvo GL from the 1980s for a few bucks. Give it a try, I guarantee you will like the results. [/img]