No doubt they’ve been having some celebratory ‘frothies’ in Wolfsburg, Germany this month as Volkswagen celebrates the 40th birthday of the most successful European car to date – the mighty Golf.
More than 30 million Golfs have been sold since the very first one – jointly designed by Volkswagen and Giugiaro - rolled from the assembly line in Wolfsburg on 29 March 1974.
The sporty GTI model first appeared in 1976, the same year as the first diesel-powered model was launched. Golf’s first turbo-diesel arrived in 1982 and Golf Cabriolet debuted in 1979.
Now in 2014, as has been the case every year back to 1974, the Volkswagen Golf remains the benchmark hatchback to which all others are compared.
