Initial impulse. The first series-production Golf rolled off the production line in Wolfsburg in March 1974 and was available at dealerships from May in the same year.

As the successor to the legendary Beetle, of which more than 21.5 million were produced, the Golf Mk1 – developed by Giorgetto Giugiaro and Volkswagen – had immensely high expectations to live up to if it was to continue the story that the Beetle started – the most successful car in the world ever, at that point. As it turned out, the modern and safe drive system concept, great flexibility offered by a tailgate and folding rear seat backrest, and of course its design, were so convincing that by October 1976, it was already time to celebrate the millionth Golf produced. 6.99 million examples of the first generation of the Golf including all derivatives were sold on all of earth’s continents.

The victory of safety. From August 1991, Volkswagen kick-started a new era of safety with the third generation of the Golf. Firstly, the Mk3 Golf was the product line’s first model available with front airbags from 1992 and secondly, great progress within the context of body design also led to significantly improved crash properties. Volkswagen revolutionised passive safety as this improved protection benefited millions of car drivers around the globe.

However, several more product line milestones are linked to the Mk3 Golf: the first six-cylinder engine (VR6), the cruise control system, the first oxidising catalytic converter for diesel engines, the first diesel direct injection engine and the first side airbags. In May 1994, Volkswagen celebrated 15 million produced Golf vehicles. In 1997, the third generation was phased out after 4.83 million produced vehicles.

End of class boundaries. It was the fifth Golf generation that offered com-fort and dynamics that went beyond those of quite a number of competitors within the upper mid-sized vehicle class. The same rang true for quality. A value that underlines the stability of the laser-welded body is that its torsional rigidity had increased by 35 percent in 2003 upon the debut of the Golf Mk5. This also marked the first time that the Golf was optionally available with side airbags in the rear – in conjunction with the six standard airbags (front, sides at the front, head-protection airbag) this now meant that eight of these protecting, inflatable pads were on board the vehicle.

In terms of comfort and dynamics the Golf Mk5 scored high marks thanks to features including the new four-link suspension rear axle and a new 7-speed DSG, bi-xenon headlights, rain sensor as well as a tilting and sliding panoramic sunroof, plus the debut of the first turbocharged direct petrol injection engine in the Golf GTI as well as the world’s first Twincharger featuring turbocharging and compressor-based charging. When the Golf Mk6 was introduced in 2008, 3.4 million units of all available Mk5 variants had been produced.

Reversing the weight spiral. On 4 September 2012, Volkswagen celebrated the seventh Golf generation’s world premiere in Berlin. Just one day later, pre-sales of this best-seller that had accrued 29.3 million sales at that point launched in the first countries. The weight of the new Golf had been reduced by up to 100 kg to reverse the often-quoted weight spiral. De-pending on the engine, it was possible to cut consumption by up to 23 percent compared with the predecessor.

Volkswagen additionally launched the Golf on the market with an entire armada of new assist systems. These included the Automatic Post-Collision Braking System, a proactive occupant protection system as well as ACC Adaptive Cruise Control and the Front Assist area monitoring system including City Emergency Braking System. To date, around 6 million units of the Golf Mk7 have left the factory gates.