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The Volkswagen Golf (Mark 1 and Mark 5 badged as Volkswagen Rabbit in North America) is a compact car / small family car manufactured by Volkswagen. The front-wheel drive Golf was Volkswagen's first successful replacement for the air-cooled Volkswagen Beetle. more...

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It is Volkswagen's best-selling model in history and world's third best-selling model, with more than 24 million built by 2005.

Most production of the Golf has been in the 3-door hatchback style. 5-door hatchback, station wagon (estate / Variant) and convertible (Cabrio) variants have also been available, as well as the Volkswagen Jetta, a saloon (sedan) based on the Golf. They have filled many market segments from basic personal cars to high-performance sports coupés.

The success of the Golf popularized the use of the hatchback in the C segment of cars and started the entire golf class. See also Volkswagen A platform.

History

Like its predecessor the Volkswagen Beetle, the Golf has proved to be influential. While the Beetle was widely and briefly copied from the Subaru 360 to the Corvair, all of these designs were abandoned not long after they had been created. In continuous production since 1974, the Golf was one of the first widely successful front wheel drive hatchbacks. The Rabbit would spark another generation of VW-alike American compacts, such as the Omni, Escort and Cavalier in the 1980s, just as the Beetle inspired Falcon and Corvair in 1960s and subcompact Vega and Pinto in the 1970s. The Golf's performance also defined the hot hatch before youth started tuning their imports.

Replacing the Beetle was a vital goal for Volkswagen's continued survival. By the early 1970s, the company had fallen into financial woe. The novelty of the Beetle had worn thin. Sales were in terminal decline. The front-engine, rear drive small cars like the Toyota Corolla were refined enough to woo customers away from Volkswagen's noisy underpowered engines and dated styling. The Type 3 and Type 4 fastback and squareback failed to attract much interest, whilst the NSU-developed K70 was a failure.

The solution arrived with Auto Union's Audi brand. They had attracted a small following with their technologically advanced front-wheel drive medium sedans. Volkswagen had acquired the Ingolstadt Company in 1964 from Daimler-Benz. Audi's expertise in water-cooled engines and front wheel drive would be crucial in mastering front wheel drive which had already been tried on cars like the Fiat 128. FWD offered more performance with lighter weight and more room in a smaller package. The Audi technology in Golf would regain for Volkswagen the engineering lead over rear drive cars that Ferdinand Porsche had bestowed on the original Beetle over its large conventional peers. The small Golf had to succeed in replacing the high volume Volkswagen sedan. The upmarket Dasher/Passat would be VW's first front wheel drive car, and it was relatively well received for its lower volume market. The Golf would adopt an efficient 2-box layout with a steep hatch rather than a formal trunk, which would be later attached as the Jetta. The water-cooled engine would be mounted in front, mounted transversely. Work on the Golf began in 1969, shortly after Kurt Lotz became head of Volkswagen.

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