Five fun facts about the 45 year-old VW Golf
Tuesday, 9 April 2019
The Volkswagen Golf turned 45 in March. In that time Volkswagen has gone through seven generations of Golf, sold lots of them and done some things they seem to be a bit embarrassed about today (see the Golf Harlequin below).
To celebrate the Golf's 45th birthday, today we take a look at five fun Golf facts you may not have known.
It replaced the Beetle. Sort of
Volkswagen struggled with how to replace the Type 1 (Beetle) for around 20 years before the Golf was released as its eventual supposed replacement in 1974.
**READ MORE:
* If you're mourning the Beetle, you're too late - it's been gone for decades
* Roaring into the 40s with a fast round of Golf
* Weird special edition vehicles**
Except it never actually replaced anything, because the Beetle remained in production for a further 29 years. In fact, three more generations of Golf (the car that was supposed to replace it, remember) appeared before the last Beetle finally wheezed off the production line in Brazil in 2003.
The ultimate insult, however, came in 1997 when VW released the New Beetle based on the Golf Mk4 platform, while the original was still in production in Brazil. Sorry Golf, you didn't quite replace the Beetle…
A vast number have been sold
The Golf has been a massively successful car for Volkswagen and the company has sold a LOT of them.
How many? More than 35 million have been sold since its debut 45 years ago.
That is an average of 780,000 per year or - wait for it - one every 41 seconds every single day since March 29 1974.
To put these numbers into perspective, VW sold just over 20 million Beetles during its lifespan, while the best-selling car in the world - the Toyota Corolla - has sold just over 40 million units.
Giugiaro's most important design
What would you think Italian design legend Giorgetto Giugiaro, who founded Italdesign - after working for both Bertone and Ghia - and designed such legendary cars as the Lotus Esprit S1, Fiat Dino coupe, Maserati Merak and Ghibli, Iso Grifo and, of course, the DeLorean DMC-12, would consider to be his 'most important' design?
If you said the Golf, you would be very right.
Giugiaro was approached to design the Golf after VW executives attended the Turin motor show in 1969 and realised that four of their six favourite designs on show were by the Italian. It is, of course, his biggest selling design as well
So many special editions
Has there ever been a car that has had more special editions than the Golf? That would seem unlikely.
The first special edition Golfs happened when VW did a run of Mk1 GTIs with an upgraded engine and exterior differences, including quad headlights. It was sold across Europe under different names, including Campaign, Trophy, Special, Plus and Pirelli.
The special edition madness reached fever-pitch with the Mk3 Golf that spawned a staggering 32 special editions, including 'European Tour Editions' for the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and Bon Jovi, as well as the legendary Harlequin special edition that saw body panels from different coloured cars swapped around…
A pope owned one
When Joseph Ratzinger got a new job in 2005, it came with a company car, so he sold his 1999 MK4 VW Golf for $20,000 to a student named Benjamin Halbe.
Halbe was surprised when the registration papers turned up, because Ratzinger's new job was as head of the Catholic church - he was, of course, Pope Benedict XVI.
Being an enterprising young chap, Halbe put the Golf on Ebay where it was bought by an American casino for a thoroughly ridiculous $248,000.
The casino intended to auction the Golf and donate the proceeds to charity. It eventually sold on Ebay a few years later for just $28,000. Ouch.