Nine things you might not know about the Volkswagen Golf

So – judging from the sketch – it is staying recognisably Golf like but, says the company, with a new digital cockpit and improved connectivity for more online-based functions and services. VW is also promising  new suspension for a boost to agility and more assisted driving features.

Cars which reach their eighth generation without a name change are pretty rare, though the VW Beetle lasted in production for 65 years, even if it was officially the Type 1 rather than the Beetle.

As we look forward to 24^th October, then, we thought it was worth a quick look back at the Golfs of old…  

Nine things you may not know about the Volkswagen Golf

• The Golf might have been called the VW Blizzard. That was never used but Rabbit (in North America) and Caribe (in Mexico) were.
• VW began work on replacing the Beetle as early as the 1950s but cars like the Type 3 and 411 never took off.
• The Golf is one of only three cars ever to win the European Car of the Year award twice.
• Since its launch in 1974 more than 35 million have been sold – that’s one new Golf every 41 seconds – making it one of the planet’s top three biggest sellers.
• There was never a Mk2 convertible, instead the MkI cabrio remained in production for 13 years until the Mk3 came out.
• Giorgetto Giugiaro of Italdesign was best known for wild concepts and supercars like the de Tomaso Mangusta and Maserati Bora when he designed the original Golf.
• One of Giugiaro’s early Golf prototypes had a sliding side door.
• The Grand Touring Injection (GTI) sporty Golf began as a skunkworks project using smuggled components.
• In the 1970s Peugeot loved diesels but hardly anyone else did… until the first Golf oil-burner arrived in 1976 and set a standard for low fuel consumption.