Move over, a car that will soon be the world's best-seller is moving up in the fast lane. It's going to pass out the current title-holder, the legendary VW Beetle, rescued from the ruins of Nazi Germany and unwisely despised and rejected by some. And the new challenger? None other than another VW, the Golf, which came on the scene in 1973.
The Golf at that time was the Beetle's mainstream successor, taking over in markets like Ireland where the Beetle was no longer being marketed. The years before 1973 were anxious ones for VW, for nothing else in the range was finding customer appeal. It was the Golf that hit the jackpot and with cumulative sales now of 17 million, it's well on the way to toppling the Beetle sibling for the world bestseller title. Beetle sales incidentally, stand at around 21 plus million.
The Golf is now in its fourth generation and it had its world press presentation in the last couple of weeks. We will see it in Ireland early in 1998. Tom O'Connor, sales manager of VW in Ireland, is reluctant to put an actual date on the arrival, given earlier disappointments with the VW Passat. "We don't want to create hopes that we can't fulfil," he says. But he thinks we will still see Golf Mark IV in the earlier part of next year.
You don't need to be a car buff to realise that the new car is still very much in the lineage of the previous three generations and that motoring cliche of "evolution rather than revolution" has been much invoked. VW have done all the things that might be expected of such a significant player in its latest manifestation: it's bigger, roomier, and better finished and equipped. The new car is longer, wider and taller than Golf III. The boot is larger with capacity growing by 10 litres to 320 litres.
Compared with the first 1974 Golf, it's an incredible 50 per cent heavier. Much of the extra weight has come from being safer, more torsionally rigid and of course, extra equipment. The engine line-up extends to no less than five petrol and three direct injection diesels. It's the 1.4 litre 75 bhp petrol unit and the turbo and normally aspiriated 1.9 litre diesels that will account for 80 per cent or more of Golf sales. Top engine for the present is a 2.3 litre five cyclinder, known as the VR5.
One of the most distinctive features of this "evolutionary" Golf is oval headlamps with perfect circles enclosed for headlights, the indicators and fog lights.
The new Mark IV Golf when it comes to Ireland, should have an enhanced specification. Even the humblest model will get height adjustment for the driver's seat, rake and reach adjustment for the steering wheel, cup-holders that fold out of the dashboard and two front airbags.
Volkswagen people were saying at the launch that their design philosophy is conservative, improving the car but essentially keeping the Golf look. Sticking to a winning formula, then, is what makes the Golf such a success story. It's heading now for 21 million plus and that coveted world best-selling title.