50 years of the Volkswagen Golf: tracing the icon’s history

Today, 29 March 2024, marks the 50th birthday of one of the automotive world’s quiet icons.

More than 36 million have been sold since 1974, and it has long since surpassed its predecessor, the first people’s car, as the best-selling European car of all time. It continues to be built at a rate of up to 2000 cars per day, and through many challenges it has survived and flourished, and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

It's a design which, like the Porsche 911, has evolved over time while retaining the essential character of the original. The importance of the Golf to Volkswagen cannot be underestimated, and as such it will see a rejuvenation, rather than reinvention, for the electric era ahead of us.

But first, let’s look at the story from the start:

The Mk1: replacing the Beetle

The Type 1, referred to as Beetle, Coccinelle or Käfer among other names, birthed Volkswagen in the 1930s, but despite only becoming the world’s best-seller in 1972, it was getting pretty long in the tooth.

A replacement was needed. Named after the Golfstrom, the German for Gulfstream, the Mk1 Golf first appeared in 1974, when the hatchback genre itself was in its infancy and ready for a stylish, affordable and well-packaged market leader. And that’s exactly what we got. The Golf was arguably the car that turned the sector into the colossal market it is today. So instantaneous was its success that by October 1976 the one millionth example had already rolled off the production line.

Giugiaro’s clean, svelte masterpiece has set the shape of hatchbacks for generations ever since then, in fact, the original shape was sold as the Citi Golf in South Africa until 2009, such was its enduring popularity.

GTI: redefining the hot hatchback formula

The Golf was a neat and efficient family car, but thanks to the efforts of a small group of enthusiastic VW engineers it became a bonafide performance car too. An after-hours project for a ‘Sport Golf’ grew into the Golf GTI, released in 1975 and kicking off the hot hatch boom.

It took the world by storm, even if it didn’t hit the UK and US markets until much later, and in the end nearly half a million