Volkswagen GOLF (1974-1983) COBI 24359 Volkswagen 1:12

Did you know:

• The first generation of the iconic Golf car was introduced in 1974 as the successor to the popular, but completely outdated VW Beetle.
• The Beetle was manufactured in Mexico until 2003, but with the publication of Ralph Nader’s book “Unsafe at Any Speed,” a hysteria erupted in the USA over the safety of cars with outdated designs, and Beetle sales dropped to zero.
• Volkswagen therefore accelerated its development work, and even before the end of 1974, the first customers could purchase the new car.
• The design of the first generation was created by the Italian stylist Giorgetto Giugiaro. Its light and attractive design, German quality, and affordable price made the Golf a global sales hit.
• Within the first few months, the Golf became the brand’s best-selling model, and in 1975, it received the Car of the Year award in Australia.
• Today, it is hardly known that the VW Golf was sold under the name Rabbit in the United States due to political pressures. The crisis associated with the oil embargo, known as the Gulf crisis, was to blame.
• Perhaps the only issue was the inferior rust protection, which eventually caught up with all owners of the first generation car.
• With each new generation, the Golf won over more and more customers with its renowned reliability, though there was a slight catch.
• Undoubtedly, the Golf was and still is a very high-quality and reliable car, but that almost otherworldly, legendary reliability was due to Volkswagen managers who “pushed” professional magazines and automotive editors into exaggerated evaluations.
• To this day, more than 37,000,000 vehicles have been produced across 8 generations.

Technical specifications of the Golf 1.1 8V:

• Dimensions: length 3.70 m, width 1.61 m, height 1.41 m
• Weight 780 kg
• Body type: hatchback
• Powertrain: 1.1 8V gasoline engine with 37.3 kW output
• Maximum speed 140 km/h
• Acceleration from 0-100 km/h in 15.8 s
• Number of gears: 4 forward gears + 1 reverse
• Fuel tank capacity 40 l
• Fuel consumption 7.4 l/100 km
• Number of seats 5

VW Technical Director Ferdinand Pieche :

"With the production of the new Golfs, we also installed new welding robots for spot welding. You can’t imagine how complicated it is to set everything up and fine-tune it. On the first attempt, we managed to weld the body to the metal floor. We wanted to create a car for everyone. And in the end, we made a car that everyone wanted."