Also available as a station wagon (called Variant), in Alltrack flavor, GTD, GTI, all-wheel-drive R, GTE, e-Golf, and Sportsvan, the perennial best-seller turned 45 years old in March 2019. Volkswagen claims that “a new Golf has been ordered every 41 seconds” since 1974, and total sales number in the 35 million.
That’s an average of 780,000 units are delivered each year, an astounding figure by all accounts. Wolfsburg, which is the home of Volkswagen, is where the first generation entered production on March 29th, 1974. First deliveries began on August 5th, and in the first years of availability, the Golf couldn’t muster more than 70 metric horsepower from 1.5 liters of displacement.
This gets us to the 1.5 TSI Evo in the seventh generation, which combines efficiency and performance with the seven-speed DSG. From the 2.0 TSI, the Golf R produces 300 ponies in bone-stock specification. There’s talk Volkswagen might hybridize the performance-oriented model for the next generation, cranking up the output to 330 or even 400 horsepower.
Speaking of which, there’s a new Golf in the pipeline for the 2020 model year. Production will start in June 2019, five months before the ID. Neo electric hatchback goes official. The premiere of the eighth generation is expected in the summer, with deliveries anticipated to start in the fall.
Compared to the Giorgetto Giugiaro-designed first generation, the Mk 8 isn’t as pretty. On the other hand, car safety legislation gave designers more freedom for their visions back in the 1970s.
