VOLKSWAGEN

Golf

The Volkswagen Golf was launched in 1974 with the immense responsibility of replacing the Beetle, the best-selling car in history, and it succeeded brilliantly by reinventing Volkswagen around a modern formula. Where the Beetle was rear-engined and air-cooled, the front-wheel-drive Volkswagen Golf used a transverse water-cooled engine and a practical hatchback body styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro at Ital Design, whose crisp, clean lines became one of the most influential shapes in automotive history. Affordable, roomy and easy to drive, the first-generation Golf, known as the Mk1, was sold as the Rabbit in the United States and the Caribe in Mexico, and quickly became Europe's default family car. In 1976 Volkswagen unleashed the version that made the model immortal: the Volkswagen Golf GTI. Originally an after-hours engineering project that managers expected to sell perhaps 5,000 units, the GTI paired a light body with a fuel-injected 1.6-litre engine producing around 110 horsepower, tartan seats and a golf-ball gearknob, effectively creating the hot-hatch class overnight. Demand exploded and around 461,690 Mk1 GTIs were eventually built. A diesel version and a stylish Karmann-built Cabriolet broadened the range further, the latter staying in production right up to 1993. With roughly 6.99 million first-generation cars built, the Volkswagen Golf reshaped the small-car world, and the original Mk1 GTI is now a treasured and rapidly appreciating modern classic.