The Volkswagen Golf Mk1 is the first generation of a front-engine, front wheel drive, water-cooled small family car manufactured and marketed by Volkswagen â€" currently in its seventh generation.
As the successor to Volkswagen's historic Beetle, the first generation Golf was marketed in 3-door and 5-door hatchback (1974â€"1983), two-door convertible (Cabriolet, 1979-1993), two-door sport model (GTI, 1975-1983) as well as open-bed mini-truck (Pickup, Caddy, 1979â€"1996) models, with one intermediate facelift (1980).
Having debuted in May 1974 with styling by Giorgetto Giugiaro's ItalDesign and water-cooled, front-wheel drive technology from VW's newly acquired Auto Union subdivision â€" the Golf Mk1 was marketed globally, prominently as the Rabbit in North America, as the Caribe in Mexico, and as the Citi Golf in South Africa (1984-2009).
History
Like its predecessor (the Volkswagen Beetle) the Volkswagen Golf Mk1 has proven to be influential. The Golf was one of the first widely successful front-wheel drive hatchbacks. In the USA, the Morris Mini, Honda N360 and Fiat 128 saw only limited success. It was the Rabbit, along with the Honda Civic, that sparked American interest in front-wheel drive compacts. The Golf was introduced to Japan in 1975, and was imported by Yanase dealerships in Japan. Its exterior dimensions and engine displacement were in compliance with Japanese Government dimension regulations, which helped sales.
Replacing the Beetle was a vital goal for Volkswagen's continued survival. By the early 1970s, the company had fallen into financial difficulties and Beetle sales began to decline sharply. Water-cooled, front-engine, front or rear-wheel drive small cars began enjoying customer loyalty, notable examples being the Citroen GS, Ford Escort and Fiat 128, as well as the Renault 6 hatchback.
The solution had arrived with Auto Union. They had attracted a small following with their technologically advanced Audi front-wheel drive medium sedans. Volkswagen had acquired the Ingolstadt-based company in 1964 from Daimler-Benz. Audi's expertise in water-cooled engines and front-wheel drive would be essential in developing a new generation of Volkswagens. The Audi technology in the 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 coupe. The upmarket Dasher/Passat would be VW's first front-wheel-drive car, and it was relatively well received for its lower volume market, where it competed mostly alongside the rear-wheel drive saloons like the Ford Cortina, although there are already some front-wheel drive cars and even hatchbacks like the Austin Maxi and Renault 16 in this market sector. The Golf would adopt an efficient "two-box" layout with a steep hatch rather than a formal trunk, which would be later added in the Jetta. The water-cooled engine would be mounted transversely in the front. Work on the Golf began in 1969, shortly after Kurt Lotz became head of Volkswagen.
Model history
The first Golf (VW internal designation Typ 17) began production early in 1974, although it was marketed in the United States and Canada from 1975 to 1984 as the Volkswagen Rabbit and in Mexico as the Volkswagen Caribe. British sales began in October 1974, where it competed against established British-built smaller family cars including the Austin Allegro, Ford Escort, Hillman Avenger, and Vauxhall Viva. All of these cars were available as saloons or estates, although the Allegro had front-wheel drive. Ford did not switch to front-wheel drive until the MK3 Escort was launched in 1980, shortly after Vauxhall replaced the Viva with the front-drive Astra. Chrysler Europe launched a similar model to the Golf at the end of 1977 when it unveiled the Horizon, a front-wheel drive hatchback, shortly before Chrysler's European operations were sold to Peugeot, who kept the Avenger in production alongside the Horizon until 1981. British Leyland switched to a hatchback for the Allegro's successor, the Austin Maestro, at the beginning of 1983. The Golf found itself competing on the British import market with the likes of the Datsun Sunny from Japan, Fiat 128 from Italy and Renault 6 from France; the number of front-wheel drive hatchbacks rivalling it from Europe and Japan gradually increased over the next few years.
It was a water-cooled, front wheel drive design in a hatchback body style. It featured firmly sprung and damped, independent MacPherson strut front suspension and semi-independent twist-beam rear suspension, that gave crisp handling and good roadholding, without being too uncomfortable. A very important model was the Golf Diesel, which appeared in late 1976. This was remarkable in how unremarkable it was, with performance very similar to that of a petrol 1100. The 1.5-litre engine used the petrol engine's crankshaft, bearings, and connecting rods, combined with the recently discontinued 1471Â cc cast-iron engine block. As with the Golf GTi, the Golf Diesel more or less created a new class of car.
The Golf was designed by Italian automobile architect / designer Giorgetto Giugiaro, of the ItalDesign design studio. Giugiaro had also designed the Alfasud and the Lotus Esprit Mk1.
There was a minor facelift in 1980 which saw the adoption of larger rear lamp clusters (more in line with Giugiaro's original concepts), moulded black plastic bumpers, a new dashboard with a more modern-looking instrument display featuring LED warning lights, and for US versions rectangular headlights, this was the last major update before it was replaced by the MK2 Golf in September 1983. It was not replaced on the right-hand drive British market until March 1984.
In its final year, 1983, the Golf enjoyed its best year in Britain with more than 27,000 sales, and in 1981 was the 11th best selling car there, consistently being among the most popular imported cars in Britain. Even in its first full year on sale there - 1975 - it had already established itself as one of the most popular imported cars, with more than 19,000 sales. It was West Germany's best selling new car for much of its production life, and was among the most successful cars in the whole of Europe during its nine-year production run. Despite its success, and the success of the smaller Polo which joined it just over a year later, Volkswagen kept the Beetle in production alongside it until 1978, when European production finished and was switched to Brazil and Mexico for its final 25 years, after which it was rarely imported to Europe.
However, air conditioning became available as an option on the domestic market in August 1975. The possibility to retrofit the installation, together with a larger battery, was offered to existing owners.
Volkswagen Golf GTI
In 1975 a sports-oriented variant of the Volkswagen Golf, called the Golf GTI was introduced in March of that year at the Frankfurt Motor Show
The idea behind it was rather straightforward - take a basic-transportation economy car and give it a high-performance package, making it practical and sporty. It was one of the first small cars to adopt mechanical fuel injection. In 2004, Sports Car International declared the Golf Mk1 GTI to be the 3rd best car of the 1980s.
This special model was powered by 1588 cc and 1780 cc four-cylinder engines fed by a Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection, which helped them develop a respectable 110 & 115PS (80 kW) @ 6,100 rpm and 140 Nm (103Â lb-ft) of torque @ 5,000 rpm. Aided with a curb weight of just 810 kg (1,785Â lb), it allowed the GTI to accelerate 0-60Â mph in 9 seconds. The top speed was of 180Â km/h (some 110Â mph). The term hot hatch was retroactively applied to the Mk1 Golf GTI some years later.
Many regard the Golf GTI Mk1 as the first "hot hatch" on the market, it was in fact preceded by the Autobianchi A112 Abarth in 1971, although it would prove to be far more popular than the earlier car. It also competed with a number of quick small saloons including the Ford Escort RS2000. When the Escort switched to front-wheel drive and a hatchback for the third generation model in 1980, Ford launched a quick XR3 model which was comparable to the Golf GTI in design and performance.
Volkswagen initially built the GTI only for the home market of West Germany, but launched it onto the British market in 1977 in left-hand drive form, with a right-hand drive version finally becoming available in 1979 as demand and competition increased. The standard Golf had been on sale in Britain in right-hand drive form since late 1974. The Rabbit GTI didn't arrive in the United States until the 1983 model year.
The Golf GTI was among the first "hot hatch" with mass market appeal, and many other manufacturers since have created special sports models of their regular volume-selling small hatchbacks. Within a few years of its launch, it faced competitors including the Fiat Ritmo, Ford Escort XR3/XR3i, Renault 5 GT Turbo and Vauxhall Astra/Opel Kadett GTE.
It proved popular on the British market, where it went on sale towards the end of 1974, where it appealed to buyers who were looking for a modern, smaller and practical family car. It gained a reputation for build quality and reliability, which came at a time when British products like the Austin Allegro were gaining a reputation for dismal build quality and reliability, and at the same time the British car industry was being plagued by frequent strikes.In 1975, its first full year on sale, it was the 14th best selling car in Britain with more than 19,000 sales.In 1981, the facelifted version of the Golf was voted Car of the Year by What Car? magazine, ahead of all-new cars including the Austin Metro and MK3 Ford Escort.In 1983, its final full year on sale (the MK2 Golf was not launched there until March 1984), it achieved more than 25,000 sales and was Britain's 14th best selling car despite being almost 10 years old.The GTI was first imported to Britain in left-hand drive form in 1977, and became available with right-hand drive in 1979, when more than 1,500 examples were sold. Although the subsequent recession saw new car sales fall considerably during 1980 and 1981, sales of the Golf GTI reached nearly 5,000 in 1981. This also came in spite of the arrival of a popular new British-built competitor - the Ford Escort XR3. By 1983, the GTI accounted for more than 25% of total Golf sales (some 7,000 cars).
Golf Cabriolet
The convertible version, named the Golf Cabriolet (or Typ 155) in Europe and Canada ("Rabbit Convertible" in America originally and renamed in 1985 to "Cabriolet"), was sold from 1980 to 1993. It had a reinforced body, transverse roll bar, and a high level of trim, and kept the pre-1980 style of rear lamp clusters. The Mk1 Cabriolet is of unibody construction built entirely at the factory of Karmann, from stamping to final assembly; Volkswagen supplied the engine, suspension, interior, etc. for Karmann to install. The vinyl or cloth tops were heavily insulated and manually - or beginning in 1991, electrically - operated, with a heated glass rear window.
The body of the Cabriolet did not change through the entire production run except for a larger fuel tank. The space saver wheel was fitted from the outset in 1978, when pre production models were built, unlike the saloon which adopted this in 1984. In an attempt by Volkswagen to keep the car's styling current, all Cabriolets from 1988 on were fitted with a "Clipper" kit out of the factory, featuring smooth body-coloured bumpers, wheelarch extensions, and side skirts.
Prior to the 1984 model year the highest standard specification was the GLI, essentially a GTI but sporting a different moniker. It was only in late 1983 with the introduction of the 1984 model that an officially badged GTI version of the cabriolet finally became available.
There were a few special editions of the Cabriolet including the Etienne Aigner, Carat, CC, Wolfsburg, and Best Seller editions. One of them was produced in Italy using Golf II Country engine and transmission by ACM, called "Golf Country Cabrio" and sold as "Biagini Passo".
South Africa (Citi Golf)
From 1984 to 2009, Volkswagen of South Africa manufactured two variants of the Mk1 Golf, the five-door Citi Golf and the Volkswagen Caddy pickup. Earlier, the original Golf Mk1 had been manufactured with petrol or diesel engines.
On September 22, 2006 in order to celebrate the continued success of the Mk1 based Citi Golf in South Africa, Volkswagen SA announced the limited edition Citi R which is powered by a 90 kW (120 hp/123 PS) 1.8L fuel injected engine with a five-speed manual transmission as well as a GTI trademark red outlined front grill.
The 2007 VW South Africa Citi Golf range starts with a standard Citi Golf, in either 1.4 or 1.6 litre fuel injected models. Many variants of the standard version are/were available with different extras packages, which included the Citi Rhythm, Citi.com and so on. The range topper is the CitiRox, also available in 1.4i and 1.6i, made as sportier versions of the standard Citi to replace the previous sports version, Velociti and Citi Life. The later Citi Golfs produced feature modern features, such as a new dashboard adapted from a Å koda Fabia, and minor body "facelifts" such as revised tail-light clusters.
The 2009 VW South Africa Citi Golf range consisted of four new models:
- CitiRox 1.4i and 1.6i
- CitiSport 1.4i and 1.6i
- TenaCiti 1.4i
- CitiStorm 1.4i
Production of the Citi Golf ended on 2 November 2009, after 377,484 cars.The final edition was a citi mk1 where 1000 vehicles where manufactured and only available in a 1.6i engine. The colors available for the citi mk1 was shadow blue and black magic pearl.
North America
In 1978, Volkswagen began producing the North American "Rabbit" version of the Mk1 Golf at its Westmoreland plant. Former Chevrolet engineer James McLernon was chosen to run the factory, which was built to lower the cost of the Rabbit in North America by producing it locally. Unfortunately, McLernon tried to "Americanize" the Golf/Rabbit (Volkswagen executive Werner Schmidt referred to the act as "Malibuing" the car) by softening the suspension and using cheaper materials for the interior. VW purists in America and company executives in Germany were displeased, and for the 1983 model year the Pennsylvania plant went back to using stiffer shocks and suspension with higher-quality interior trim. The plant also began producing the GTI for the North American market in the fall of 1982, for the 1983 model year. 'Rabbits' were built in Pennsylvania until 1984. The first Volkswagen Caddy pick-up, based on the Mk1 Golf, was also created at the Pennsylvania plant.
Canada continued to import the more desirable German made Rabbit until the 1981 model year when Volkswagen Canada began to import the US made version.
The original U.S.-spec Golf saw use in a taxi fleet. The Yellow Cab Company of Lexington, Kentucky, bought eleven Rabbits in the late seventies as part of an effort to save money on fuel, estimating an annual savings of $135,000 in gasoline costs.
By 1982 the gasoline powered Rabbit had a 1715Â cc engine, an iteration used only in North America, which offered 74Â hp (55Â kW).
The Volkswagen Rabbit GTI, the North American version of the high-performance Golf GTI, debuted in Canada in 1979 and the United States for 1983. Assembled from parts made in Mexico, Canada, Germany and the U.S. in Volkswagen's Westmoreland assembly plant, it had the same Mk1 chassis, and the same A1 body type as the Mk1 Golf GTI that had been on sale in Europe since 1976, with a few exceptions. Key distinct features of the Rabbit GTI were its squared front end styling, and its alloy "snowflake" wheels. The interior came in red or blue felt and leatherette trim. The squared styling of the front end, particularly the wraparound direction indicator lights, gave it added safety and slight improvement in performance. Under the hood, the engine was a JH 1.8 litre four-cylinder gasoline engine that ran on unleaded fuel; in addition to being marginally larger than the regular engine it also had lightened pistons, bigger valves, a higher compression, and a free-flow exhaust as well as other minor improvements. The JH 1.8 litre was transversely mounted, and it would peak in stock condition at 90Â hp (67Â kW), delivered through a close-ratio five-speed manual transmission. For 1984 the Rabbit GTi was back, now with an updated engine offering 100Â hp (75Â kW). In total, 30,000 of these 1.8 litre Rabbit GTis were built in Pennsylvania.
When the Rabbit GTI first appeared in Canada, it featured the 78Â hp 1.5L (79) and 1.6L (80) K-Jetronic engine and wide ratio five-speed transmission. It was initially available in red, white, and black. These Canadian cars were German-built and were nearly identical in bodyshell and interior appearance to the 81Â kW (110Â PS; 109Â hp) Golfs built in Europe. Unfortunately for enthusiasts, the entire driveline and running gear was identical to the other Canadian versions. Five-MPH bumpers were fitted as well as anti-intrusion bars within the doors. The towing eye integral to the front of the European car was deleted as the crashworthy bumper's shock absorbers had towing facilities as part of their design and the car had been crash-tested for Canada with the North American front apron. The car was very attractive but drove no better or worse than a Rabbit of the same era. Only with the arrival of the American GTI was a faster Golf available in Canada, and it was down 22Â hp (16Â kW) compared to the 1.8 litre Golf GTI Mk1. A small number of European specification GTIs made it to Canada under an agreement with the government that allowed foreign soldiers training at Canadian military facilities to bring their personal vehicles with them. As a result of this, VW made available (for many years) all unique European model parts required through VW of Canada. It was possible then, although expensive, to build a "real" GTI. Some enthusiasts did so based on the reputation of the European car.
Caribe (Mexico) (1977-1987)
The 1970s
The Golf MkI was introduced in Mexico as the Volkswagen Caribe in May 1977 as a 5-door hatchback. It came standard with a 4-speed manual gearbox and 1.6 liter 66 HP engine. The car was an instant success. As the 1978 model year lineup expanded with the 3-door vehicle, it was divided into two different trims: Normal and L. Both trims had a manual, 4-speed, 1.6 liter engine. In 1979 the GL trim was added.
The 1980s
In 1980 the Caribe received rectangular headlamps as well as some new colours. In 1981 the Caribe changed to include many features from the American 1981 Rabbit (an alternate name for the Golf). In 1983 and 1984, due to the financial crisis in Mexico, the Normal version was renamed 'C' and the L was discontinued, leaving the C and GL as the only trims offered. Both versions received a new dashboard from the 1980 European Golf. In 1984 the slow-selling diesel Caribe C was officially dropped, but the Caribe GT appeared, derived from the Golf and Rabbit GTI. This souped-up version featured a 1.8 litre engine with 85Â hp (63Â kW) and included a carburettor.
Limited editions
In 1986 the limited edition Caribe City emerged, based on the Caribe C, but painted only in Pearl Grey and Turquiose Blue. In 1987 new colors and two other limited editions emerged: The Caribe Plus, and the Caribe Pro. The Caribe Plus was based on the Caribe GL, and was painted only in Alpine White. The Caribe Pro was based on the Caribe GT, but was painted in Black and Tornado Red. In March 1987 the Caribe was replaced by the Golf MkII after 10 years of success.
See also
- Volkswagen Group A platform
- Volkswagen Golf for an overview of all generations of VW Golf
- VDub
- list of discontinued Volkswagen Group petrol engines
- list of discontinued Volkswagen Group diesel engines
- Hot hatch
- Small family car
References
External links
- Golf at Volkswagen International
- Volkswagen Golf at DMOZ
- Volkswagen Golf Mk1 on Facebook