Grand Design

Precisely developed supermini that redefined Volkswagen

Under the skin of the revolutionary VW Golf MKI.

The Beetle was a hard act to follow. Volkswagen didn’t commit itself until numerous concepts had been prototyped and it was ready to hit the ground running with a practical and well-developed modern car. Simply styled without any eccentricity or gimmicks, unpretentiously handsome, well-engineered and instantly recognisable, the Golf was ‘right first time’. Build quality and fitness for purpose remained trademark strengths.

Like its predecessor, the Golf that broke cover in 1974 incorporated little that was new or fundamentally unique. Just as rearengined bug-shaped cars had been widely produced in the Thirties before the arrival of the Beetle, the front-wheel drive ‘supermini’ formula was well-established before the arrival of the Golf. The 1964 Autobianchi Primula pioneered what became the default mechanical layout: a transverse straightfour liquid-cooled engine with an end-on transmission driving the front wheels. Cars such as the Simca 1100 and Fiat 127 were already available and popular in the early Seventies. The historic significance of the first Golf is, nonetheless, very real.

The Golf marked a step-change for Volkswagen and its essential ‘personality’ has been successfully incorporated into six subsequent generations – with a MKVIII due in mid-2019. More than 34 million Golfs had been built by the end of 2017.