The Volkswagen Golf just turned 50 years old

Can you believe it? One of the world’s most popular cars, the Volkswagen Golf, has just turned 50 years old.

First launched on 29 March 1974, the plucky little hatchback was an instant success with customers thanks to its front-mounted transverse engine design – a relatively new concept at the time. By October 1976, over one million units had hit the road.

That number has now grown to more than 37 million examples, with over half of those being made at the carmaker’s Wolfsburg plant where it all began.

While German at heart, Volkswagen considers the Golf to be a “world car” as it has also been manufactured in Belgium, Brazil, China, Malaysia, Mexico, Slovakia, and South Africa.

With so many being made and for a diverse range of markets, you can imagine how many different iterations of the Golf have been released over the past half a century. It all started two years after its launch when the model spawned a diesel and sporty GTI variant, followed by the Cabriolet in 1979.

In 2019, the world was introduced to the eighth-generation model which most recently underwent a facelift, bringing with it a sharper look and artificial intelligence-based ChatGPT technology among other modern features.

With all of that being said, we wish the Volkswagen Golf a happy birthday. Here’s to the next 50 years.