2023-12-29 09:00:00
The Volkswagen brand was born with the Beetle. A flagship model, a global success including the long career that began in 1938 and ended, in Mexico in 2003, with more than 21.5 million units sold was both a strength and a weakness. For the engineers of the Wolfsburg brand, replacing the people’s car was a real challenge. The gestation of the Volkswagen Golf, which in 2024 will celebrate its 50th anniversary, was not a smooth ride far from it. Here are the main stages.
To the question of style, in fact, the curvaceous formal register then in vogue from the 1930s to the 1960s, had gone out of fashion by the 1970s, and that of technique was added. The engine placed at the rear and the propulsion architecture of the Beetle were seriously undermined, particularly by the Mini born in 1959. The clever English car with its transverse mechanism housed under its front hood knew better than anyone how to take advantage of the habitable volume in a small size.
A mini Beetle was on the program for a while
Le prototype Volkswagen EA48© DR
Moreover, in the summer of 1953, the internally coded EA48 project illustrates the research for a small traction vehicle which was initially to take its place in the range under the Beetle. There was even a diesel engine, avant-garde technology at the time for a city car, which was tested under its hood. But the prototype never made it to series production and following numerous road tests the idea was abandoned in 1956.
A Golf with a Boxter-style engine…
The Volkswagen EA266 prototype with its engine in a central position under the passenger compartment.© DR
Ten years later, in the summer of 1966, this time it was Porsche which was thinking regarding replacing the Beetle. The EA266 study then begins with a very unique mechanical architecture. At the time, Porsche had in its pipeline a project for a small sedan powered by a water-cooled in-line four-cylinder engine housed at the front and a transmission on the rear axle.
Proposal which was rejected by the Volkswagen board of directors, as was that of a car with a transverse front engine and transmission to the front wheels. Faced with these refusals, Porsche then imagined a city car with a central engine housed lengthwise under the floor behind the front seats. A particular location which justifies the cooling vents at the bottom of the rear fenders upstream of the rear wheels. imageThe Volkswagen EA266 prototypes in the middle of the test phase.© DR
But at the end of the tests, the heat dissipated in the passenger compartment as well as the noise and vibrations added to poor accessibility to the mechanics and de facto a higher cost during maintenance operations. And to finish off the picture, the weight distribution might make driving particularly dangerous on wet roads. Numerous grievances which did not immediately alert management, which only stopped the project in 1971.
Here is the ancestor of the Golf!
In 1969, the Volkswagen EA276 prototype was supposed to replace the Beetle, the future Golf in short.© DR
In parallel, from 1969, the EA276 project took over. This time the air-cooled engine takes place under the front hood. The cubic bow is reminiscent of that of the Fiat sedans of the 1960s, which extended their career in Russia under the Lada label. There is also a bit of Zastava Yugo in this drawing.
While on the contrary, the rear with its thick quarter panel evokes more the spirit of the Brazilian Volkswagen SP sports coupe (see our photo gallery). At Volkswagen we have the art of practicing, wisely, recycling and the EA276 which was initially supposed to give birth to the Golf will instead serve as its low-cost alter ego intended for South America, the Volkswagen Gol.imageThe rear quarter pillar of the VW EA276 is singularly lacking in finesse.© www.history-of-cars.com
It is the master Giorgietto Giugiaro who comes to the rescue with a balanced, perfectly angular design that will be a landmark. In the 1970s, Italian designers were a reference. For the record at Peugeot, the lines of the 104 born in 1972, rival of the Golf, are the work of Paolo Martin on behalf of Pininfarina.
An Italian beauty
In 1974, Volkswagen presented the Golf 1 whose dress was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro© Volkswagen
The lines of the Volkswagen Golf 1 have aged well; the brand also marketed its star sedan in South Africa until… 2009. A great career of 35 years, that’s thirty less than the Beetle, but for the Golf obsolescence was faster.
Read also. This country where the Volkswagen Golf 1 remained in the catalog for… 35 years!
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