After the Second World War and the reinstatement of Beetle production, the city was renamed Wolfsburg after the nearby Wolfsburg Castle. In 2003, however, Volkswagen temporarily renamed the city after a car, calling it Golfsburg as a publicity stunt for the fifth-generation Golf, changing all the street names in the process. I was there and it was ridiculous and for a month no one could find their way around the sprawling city.
The Mk1 Golf
“Great power, great performance and great fun,” ran the copy lines for the first Golf, introduced in the UK in October 1974. Motor magazine’s road testers didn’t get quite so carried away when they got their hands on a car in early 1975. Their test of the 1100L model praised the smooth and tractable engine, excellent gear change, responsive steering and safe handling (strangely, all the pictures were of the car being blasted through high-speed turns), but they didn’t like the £1,517 price, which made it look expensive against the Austin Allegro, Alfasud, Ford Escort and Simca (remember them?). Nor were the 87.4mph top speed, 17.8-second 0-60mph time, or 28.4mpg thirst, much to write home about.
Four months later, they tested the more luxurious and powerful 1500LS, which solved a lot of issues for a price of £1,798. That said, testers didn’t like the hard seats, poor ventilation and, strangely, the imprecise gear change. Again, the car was photographed being hurled through various corners at wild angles of lean. The crucial figures were a top speed of 97.8mph, 0-60mph in 12.6sec and average economy of 27.8mpg.
The Golf was runner-up to Citroën’s CX in the 1975 Car of the Year award, but the public knew what they wanted and in its first year, the Golf was the 14th best-selling car, with almost 20,000 sales.
I was one of those owners with a nippy early-1980s Mk1 with a 75bhp, 1.6-litre engine and five-speed gearbox. It was a great little car, fast, sure-footed, with decent economy. I wasn’t alone in my admiration for that Golf; there are pictures of a certain Diana Spencer standing beside a light-blue Mk1.
The GTI launched in 1976 is considered one of the first hot hatchbacks. The UK didn’t get it until 1977, then only as a special-order left-hand drive model. Motor loved it, saying “if Volkswagen are as successful in competition as they have been in developing this car they will prove formidable opponents”.
UK buyers would have to wait until 1979, however, to get their hands on a proper factory right-hand drive GTI, which basically was the start of the British public’s love affair with fast family hatches.