Series production of the new Golf has started at the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg: the first car from the technically and visually revamped eighth model generation to roll off the assembly line in Hall 12 was a Golf Style in anemone blue metallic – almost exactly 50 years since the very first series Golf was built in Wolfsburg.
Over the last five decades, Volkswagen’s main plant in Wolfsburg has in a sense become the “soul” of global Golf production: over half of the more than 37 million models of this king of the compact class sold to date – an average of 400,000 units per year – have been built at the main plant. This includes the “classic” Golf, now in its eighth generation, with various derivatives such as the Golf Variant and Golf Sportsvan, and a broad range of models and powertrains.
The Volkswagen Group’s largest car manufacturing plant had another reason to celebrate this week, too. Just a few days before the new Golf went into production, the factory celebrated the 48 millionth vehicle to leave the assembly line; no other automotive plant worldwide has built anywhere near as many vehicles as the factory in Wolfsburg. It goes without saying that the anniversary model was a Golf.
With a production volume of some 20 million vehicles, the Golf is the most-built model at the plant. Second place goes to the Beetle, with almost 12 million units produced in Wolfsburg between 1945 and 1975. The Tiguan now occupies third place, with just under 3.5 million models rolling off the assembly lines since the start of production in 2007. It has overtaken the Polo, where production of more than three million units at the site on the Mittelland Canal began in 1975.
