It all depends on the state, best bet is talk to the DMV & ask a few different workers at a few different DMV's (the first one you talk to might say you cant do it because they dont know or dont care to tell you)

If you want to do it with less hastle but more risk. Go find another person with a junk VW rabbit that has a title & just switch that title along with the vin plates. I would never recommend this if you ever decided you might want to sell the car again. I would only do this as a last resort & you would also want to make damn sure you did a good job of affixing the vin plates.

The other trick would be finding a friend who has a friend thats a cop & ask them to run the plates or the VIN & try to find the old owner.

Some states require a sherrifs sale to do it the correct way & placing ads in the paper along with sending out certified letters to the last titled owner. I did this to get my first car (which just happened to be a 81 VW Jetta Diesel) this guy owned a repair shop & the owner never paid the bill & left the car. So we placed did everything I mentioned plus had a copy of the repair bill.