Toyota, Datsun, Pinto, Vega, Honda, Fiat were all considered...
the Volkswagen Rabbit made it.
It's the best car in the world.
It's an everyday hero, an affordable, sensible family car that still conquers tracks across
the globe.
It's the car that Volkswagen didn't even want, that now defines their brand.
It invented the whole idea that a car could be cool without costing you a mortgage.
If you're on a budget, it's awesome; if you're not, it's still awesome.
Jeremy Clarkson said that this is one of the most influential cars ever.
I would wack myself with excitement.
I've owned 12 of them.
Someone's not counting!
This is everything you need to know to get up to speed on the Volkswagen Golf GTI.
C'monnnn... family hatchback, a legend?
Really James?
Really?
Well, yes, smartass.
See, back in the 70s you could buy either an affordable car or if you were rich, you
could buy a high end sports car like a Ferrari or Lamborghini, all that good stuff.
But for the working man a Ferrari wasn't really an option.
A car within reach looked something like this: a Volkswagen Beetle.
Which sucks.
Yeah I know people like them and I'm gonna get flamed for that, but they suck.
Sure, it's cute, cus it looks like a bug, and it's like an icon, but for somebody who
loved to drive, hit the open road or wind through a canyon the Beetle...
I'm trying to think of the right word here... sucks.
Volkswagen had their own problems with the Beetle, namely that by the 70s it was already
40 years old.
Awwwww, you fu--
World War 2 hadn't even started when the first Beetle rolled off the assembly
line.
And here they were, still selling them.
They needed a new car to replace it, something affordable, yet sexy - like me.
So in 1974 they finally released the Golf.
It looked good!
Had a nice little efficient engine, surprisingly roomy, it was a good car.
People liked it.
It sold pretty well.
Volkswagen was happy.
And yet the Beetle refused to die.
Even with the Golf on the market the Beetle just kept on chugging.
Enter Anton Conrad, quite possibly the most important marketing executive of all time.
See he had this crazy notion that maybe average people might like a fast car.
Weird!
Specifically looking at the youth market, Conrad pitched the idea of a high performance
variant of the Golf.
Basically same car; bigger engine.
Mm, recipe for success.
What did Volkswagen say?
No.
Volkswagen didn't think there was enough of a market there.
And besides that, the Golf was never designed to be a performance machine.
In response: Conrad did it anyway.
He f*** you Dad, I'm my own man!
Dad, what about you!
F*** you!
Working with a 6 man team, he shoved a 1.6 liter in-line 4 that developed 110 horsepower
into the Golf.
Hey, I'll admit, 110 horsepower doesn't sound like a lot, but this was 1975 we're talking
about, people were using rotary phones, and this car is tiny!
You ever seen a Mk1 Golf?
The result was a sensation, Volkswagen only planned to make 5000 GTIs, by the end of the
original run they made 420,000! 420 dudeeee.
The Golf GTI handled well, it drove fast, and still had as much space and sensibility
as the base model.
Cool didn't have to live on a poster anymore, anyone could drive it!
And oh yeah - it killed the bug.
In 1979 the Beetle finally ceased being sold in the United States.
Although we should mention this awesome 70s GTI we're talking about never sold in the
United States.
America got a variation called the Rabbit GTI, which didn't have the European engine,
which means instead of 40 more horsepower than the base model, it got 1 more.
One.
One horse.
Sorry America.
Sorrrry.
But the little hatchback that could wasn't content to just be a great car, it went on
to change the entire industry, and the world.
For one thing, to help produce the Golf, Volkswagen bought an old Chrysler plant in Pennsylvania.
This was the very first time a foreign auto manufacturer opened up operations in the US,
which paved the way for many others for years to come, helped the US economy.
Boom.
More broadly, the GTI is the car that brought cars out of the 1970s funk.
Up to its release, the energy crisis of the time and a general economic... forced all
vehicles to get smaller, duller, and more boring.
The GTI was a shot of adrenaline in the arm of the whole industry and led to the performance
car renaissance of the 1980s, right on through to today.
Icons like the Skyline GT-R, Mazda MX-5 can trace their routes back to the GTI's idea
of speed machine for the people.
Even if you've never wanted a GTI, odds are, there's a car out there that you did want
that only exists today because of it.
That means anytime you see a GTI on the road, you're looking at a hero.
You owe your life to dental hygiene.
And if you drive a GTI, you're a hero too.
And it's won pretty much every award from pretty much every car magazine on the planet.
Oh and one other thing - over the years it's sold 2 million units!
One million - 2 frickin' million, idiot!
That's how a people's car becomes a legend.
It's like The Rock of cars.
You like a Focus ST?
Thank the GTI.
And the Mk1 was just the beginning.
The Mk2 saw the introduction of a twin-cam, 16 valve engine, and got Recaros.
The Mk3 got the VR6, a 2.8 liter narrow-angle V6, with 172 horsepower and one of the sweetest
exhaust notes in the history of cars.
Mk4 got the 20 valve 1.8 T, nevarlose.
Mk5 was ugly, and got independent rear suspension, the 2 liter TSI and plaid seats.
The Mk6 is basically a good looking Mk5.
And it's still available today.
You can buy a new one.
Current generation is called the Mk7, because it's the 7th one, duh.
And there's a GTI.
It has a 2 liter turbocharged engine, with direct injection, and 230 horsepower.
And there's an even more rowdy one, called the Golf R, which is all-wheel drive, has
292 horsepower.
That's almost 300 horsepower!
The Golf itself has a lot of offshoots too, like the Jetta, and the Cabrio, which is not
available anymore.
And there's a lot of competitors to the Golf.
The whole hot hatchback category, which it invented, is now loaded with choices.
And some of them are pretty good.
But even today, the original is the gold standard by which all others are compared.
And none of them have the legacy of the car whose original purpose was to just be a little
bit better than a Beetle.
This is everything you need to know to get Up To Speed on the Volkswagen Golf GTI.
What cars do you want to see us cover?
What did I miss?
What did I do wrong?
How can we do better.
What do you like about it.
Like my hat?
Let me know.
Please subscribe, comment down below.
Why doesn't my dad love me?
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