May 7, 2024 · The VW Golf turns 50. Its history is more than that of a generation and produced the swallowtail, strawberry basket and spittoon.
Germany becomes football world champion. At the beginning of the year, around three million more adults are living in this country overnight because the age of majority is lowered from 21 to 18. You can also get a liter of petrol for an outrageously cheap 80 pfennigs – adjusted for purchasing power, that’s equivalent to 1.30 euros today. Even though 1974 was influenced by the aftermath of the oil crisis, Volkswagen had already started looking for a successor to the successful Beetle model years before. Expectations are correspondingly high. The new one should be dynamic, comfortable and safe, as well as spacious and compact. Constructors and designers from Volkswagen, Porsche and Audi have already worked on models with a tailgate in the past, which are considered to be the pioneers of the Golf. The decisive decision is made in Ingolstadt. There, Rudolf Leiding, as board member, is responsible for the Audi models 100 and 80, both of which have an in-line four-cylinder and front-wheel drive. The Wolfsburg-based company adopted this drive concept. The Italian designer Giorgetto Giugiaro, who also designed the Passat and the Scirocco, has already been commissioned to create the good shape. Under the direction of the then chief designer Herbert Schäfer, the Golf was finally made ready for series production.
The first generation came onto the market in 1974 quite surprisingly, as it was not at the Geneva Motor Show that same year, as a FAZ trade fair report at the time shows. The first test drive finally follows in May. Back then, our editor wrote that there was no one in the “Golf class” who had “achieved such an acceptable synthesis in terms of cornering behavior, comfort and pleasant steering feel”. At the time, the price of around 8,000 D-Marks was considered “not small”. Nevertheless, Volkswagen quickly achieved success with the Golf, with one million vehicles sold just two and a half years after its market launch. Only until 1975 did the end plate under the rear license plate have two sloping beads, which gave the first series the nickname dovetail. At the same time, the first sports version with the three letters sacred to fans sees the light of day. The GTI was introduced at the IAA in Frankfurt in 1975. He laid the foundation for the national sporting icon, built according to the same recipe to this day. Its sports steering wheel has such a low-lying hub that it is now known as a spittoon.