It doesn’t get better than this lucky shot if you want to tell the story of how VW replaced the Beetle with the Golf 50 years ago, especially considering how much dithering and just plain luck played into its birth and existence. It also perfectly captures the day I stepped out of my ’64 Bug and first drove a new red ’75 Rabbit; I couldn’t have staged it better. Children: there are times when dithering and dumb luck trumps all the best laid plans in the world.
Especially so when it turns out that the result—the Golf/Rabbit—became the most influential global compact car, exceeding even the influence of the Beetle.
From a modern perspective of short model cycles, it’s difficult to fully grasp VW’s situation in the sixties and early seventies. They had been building essentially the same car for some thirty five years. The Beetle and its offshoots were a global phenomena and success story of remarkable scope and dimension. But VW knew it would some day have to replace its cash cow, but it was terrified of the prospect and possible failure. What could possibly replace the most widely built and iconic car in the world?
The Type III (1500/1600/Squareback/Notchback/Fastback) was a tentative step to reduce its dependence on one model. But it was really just a boxier body on the VW chassis with a slightly bigger engine. And despite some decent success, it still had most of the Beetle’s limitations. The traditional RWD competition from Opel, Ford and many others were getting consistently better, and a whole new generation of advanced space-efficient FWD cars inspired by the Mini were increasingly showing the way forward. VW’s rear engine format was looking more ass-backwards by the day.
VW knew it would eventually face a day of reckoning, having to replace the Beetle. Already starting in the mid ’50s, numerous prototypes were built, mostly by Porsche, which had a lucrative contract to create prototypes and other engineering work for VW. This one, the 1955 EA48 was developed quite far, but VW was struggling to keep up with the rapidly growing demand for the Beetle that there was simply no reason to invest in a new car, even if it shared a lot of the VW underpinnings.
This one, EA97/1, is an attempt to modernize the Beetle. There were dozens of others. But as long as the Beetle kept selling so well, and it was so profitable thanks to having amortized its costs as well as being inherently low cost to build, VW kept procrastinating.
But the day of reckoning was getting closer; Beetle sales were starting to droop in Europe, thanks to growing competition from more modern cars.
The most promising one that was almost put into production was the EA 266 (above), also designed and built by Porsche, with its water-cooled engine flat under the rear seat. But VW was profoundly concerned about the profitability of complex new designs, given how cheaply they had learned to build the Beetle and its offspring.
The VW 411/412 of 1968 is the most extreme example of VW’s inability to break the over-ripe mold. Essentially a giant Super Beetle, it failed to gain traction in the mid-sized market that was dominated by RWD and FWD sedans that had better performance, economy, handling and trunk room. The 411/412 was the wake-up call, and VW entered its final performance-anxiety stage, knowing the long-procrastinated Beetle successor had to come, and come quick. In Europe, Beetle sales had started dropping off much sooner than in the US, where VW was still selling half a million per year and making enormous profits.
In the end, and just like in my serendipitous picture, the answer was right under their nose, and where it had been since 1964: Audi. VW bought Audi from Mercedes in that year (imagine if that hadn’t happened), and Audi’s predecessor DKW had been building FWD cars since the twenties. In the early seventies, Audi had just finished developing their superb Audi 80 (US Fox), including a very advanced and compact OHC four to power it, the EA827. And Audi was already at work on an even smaller, highly space-efficient transverse-engine FWD hatch, the Audi 50. Bingo! Everything VW needed was at hand, if they could just get their arrogant head out of their rear (engine stubbornness).
Out of desperation and the failure of the 411/412 as well as even the advanced but flawed NSU-sourced K70, VW finally sucked it up and got on with it.
The Audi 80 was co-opted, fast-backed and re-badged into the highly successful Passat (US Dasher).
And the development work on the smaller Audi 50 was highly useful: blow it up one size, and Bingo! The Golf was born.
That’s possibly understating things a wee bit, and perhaps the Audi 50 and Golf were in development more simultaneously. But lets just say that the Golf owes a huge amount of its existence, and its engines, transmissions, suspensions, basic form and all kinds of other technical and conceptual aspects to the very advanced and competent work being done at Audi while VW was busy gazing at its navel for fifteen years.
But in the end it was worth all the anxiety. Despite VW’s great concern that the Golf wouldn’t really catch on and truly replace the Beetle (that’s why they kept building it for years still), the Golf is in every way as iconic and influential as the Beetle. Just like the Beetle’s design had borrowed from other sources, the Golf was hardly original. But that’s how it often is in the car world: the true engineering pioneers often don’t succeed technically, because of a lack of pragmatism. The Golf was highly pragmatic; an assemblage of the best that Audi, Simca, Autobianchi, Fiat, Austin, Renault and others had pioneered, and refined into a practical, palatable and handsome box, thanks to its styling by Giorgetto Giugiaro.
The Golf went on to define the whole class it dominates; well, outside of the US that is. In reality and with the benefit of hindsight, one can rightly say that VW’s anxieties were not all that misplaced. Because just like Toyota and Honda have in recent decades generated a lion’s share of their profits from the US, the same was true for VW in the sixties. And in truth, the Golf/Rabbit really never lived up to the Beetle’s huge success here. VW’s long decline from domination of the US import/small car market began in earnest just before the Rabbit appeared, and the Rabbit never properly stopped it, despite massive efforts such as building it in the US.
But to those who could appreciate the Golf then, and like those that still do, as this featured car’s obviously enthusiastic owner, the Rabbit was a revelation. Count me as one of them. The picture above is so particularly meaningful to me, because it perfectly captures my first Golf drive. I was driving a ’64 Beetle 1200 at the time, exactly like in the photo. And a friend had bought one of the first Rabbits in Baltimore in the fall of 1974.
He picked up one of the ultra-stripper models like this one, that was especially made for the US only, in order to be able to meet a sub $3k price ($2,999). It had textured hard-board for the partial door-panels (covered with some cloth on this car), and was utterly stripped of all excess and then some more. Ironically, VW wouldn’t have dared to sell this version in Europe! The closest thing to it was the Chevette Scooter some years later.
But who gave a damn when you were twenty-one and lived a spartan existence? I parked my 34 (net) hp Beetle and walked over to his Rabbit, and he handed me the keys. Its 70 hp 1.5 L OHC engine might have been a Golf R32 compared to my poky little slug-bug with less than half the horsepower. Weighing barely 2,000 lbs, the Mk I Golf was a driver’s nirvana. The engine pulled and revved; the un-assisted steering was light and direct, with just a hint of torque steer; and the handling was just superb: I zinged, zigged and zagged it on the winding back roads of Baltimore County, and it was as much fun as I’ve ever had driving a car.
Getting back into my Beetle was like taking off the latest Nike running gear and putting on a cave-man’s dirty old fur. That’s me in 1974 taking a smoke break to absorb and ponder my rite of initiation into the cult of the Golf.
The European Golfs came with either the little 50 hp (EA111) 1.1 liter from the Audi 50, or the 70 hp (827) 1.5. In the US, VW showed a bizarre restlessness about the Rabbit’s engines. In ’76, it went to a 1.6 with 71 hp. The best year for early Rabbits is 1977, when it got fuel injection and pumped out 78 horses. I so lusted after one that year, especially after my boss bought one, a properly trimmed LS version. It was a somewhat-poorer-man’s BMW 2002 at the time. Very German, nice quality interior, tight; just all-round perfect. But they were getting pricey. The dollar’s slide in the early seventies was a terrible problem for VW, and was the reason they built the first modern import brand factory in the US in 1979.
In 1978, VW did a strange thing and reduced the Rabbit’s engine size to 1.45 liters and down to 70 hp. And from then on, they dicked around with engine size and output on an almost yearly basis. What was in the beer they were drinking?
Needless to say, the Golf created the Golf class, and it continues to be dominant in Europe and successful in many parts of the globe. In the US, it took slapping a trunk on it in the form of the Jetta, to really make it more palatable to Americans. But its impact even in the US was a very significant and lasting one. It was the car that saved Volkswagen, and propelled it to a global giant. Not bad for being the result of dithering and prevaricating.
(note: a new version of an older post)
Related CC reading:
Vintage R&T Extended (24,000 Miles) Use Report: 1975 VW Rabbit – Issues, and More to Come PN
Curbside Classic: 1946 Volkswagen 1100 (Type 11): The Beetle Crawls Out Of The Rubble PN
Curbside Classic: 1977 VW Beetle – The Fuel Injected End Of The Road For The Beetle PN
Curbside Classic: 1979 Volkswagen Golf – Is this CC’s Favourite Car? Tatra 87
The Golf in Europe began as a small-segment car, but over the years it became a C-segment car, or midsize.
The Ford Fiesta was born in the same 1970s; it’s a shame they stopped producing it a year ago.
The Golf has always been a C-segment car in Europe, it’s just that the parameters of the C-segment have gotten progressively bigger.
The Fiesta was always a B-segment model, like the VW Polo.
My best friend who had moved from Towson to Boulder bought a new Rabbit in early ’75. When we visted I got to drive his bright yellow well equipped version. It was indeed a revelation, though a class below my 1 yr old SAAB 99, it was more fun to drive. Too bad that whole Rabbit/Dasher/Fox generation were so poorly executed, it no doubt started the damage to VWs hard earned reputation for quality and durability.
The superb surfacing and proportioning that Guigaro did still remains very eye appealing!
Certainly nothing like the basic blobs goobered together on the Bug. Total contrast. Guigaro’s work certainly stands the test of rime. 🙂 DFO
Might be interesting to consider an alternate history wherein Volkswagen did not buy Audi. The German arm might have built the FWD flat-4 Gol from Brazil, as one possibility.
There are two post-ww2 automotive corporate acquisitions I consider absolutely brilliant. One was Chrysler buying AMC for a pittance and gaining some serious engineering and management talent, a modern assembly plant, and the Jeep brand and lineup, perfectly timed for the SUV boom. The other is Volkswagen’s purchase of Auto Union which Daimler-Benz had bought years earlier to help gain a stake in a less-expensive market segment. Auto Union was formed way back in 1931 from a four-way merger, with one of those four being Audi (hence the four-ring logo). But by the early ’60s about all that was left of Auto Union was DKW, a builder of small FWD cars with two-stroke engines that were fast becoming unpopular. During the time they were owned by Mercedes, they developed a new FWD sedan that was very modern and impressive except for the two-stroke motor. Then they engineered a modern four-stroke engine for an upgraded version of that design that would finally give them a leading-edge, very competitive car to sell. But before it was released, Mercedes decided to cut their losses and sell Auto Union to VW. I’m guessing M-B didn’t expect Volkswagen to revive the Audi brand for the car the Mercedes engineered; Auto Union/Audi designs would not only bring VW into the future in the ’70s but also give them an upscale brand that would compete with Mercedes in nearly every segment they were in.
As for what VW would have done had Mercedes not put Audi up for sale, I’m guessing base their future models on the K70, making smaller and larger versions.
This brought back a lot of unpleasant memories. I had a first-year Rabbit, purchased new, a yellow 2-door with cloth seats, optional radial tires and front disk brakes, and no a/c. I chose the car for the same reasons as the buff books: efficient packaging, great handling, and good fuel economy.
The car was peppy and fun to drive with its 4-speed stick, but it was noisy and a reliability nightmare. Within 6 months of ownership, there were 2 no-start incidents, requiring tows to the dealer. The finicky carburetor was to blame. Later, the driver sunvisor broke off on one side when I pulled it down (weak plastic brackets), and the tuning knob on the radio quit working. These were all warranty fixes. At only 13K miles (now out of warranty), the clutch had to be replaced (I had learned to drive a stick at age 16 on my mom’s 1967 Chevy Bel Air, so it wasn’t a lack of technique.)
While parked outside during the infamous January 1978 Indianapolis blizzard, the engine compartment filled up with snow. When I went to start the car afterward (and after brushing off the engine as best as possible), the partially exposed timing belt slipped on its cogs resulting in yet another no-start and tow to the dealer.
The stamped steel wheels corroded badly, not helped by brake dust accumulation from the front disks. The catalytic converter innards came loose, requiring replacement (I think that may have been covered by the warranty). The engine started to develop an appetite for oil, but the dealer brushed it off as normal. I later learned this was because of the weak valve stem seals. Last, after I had made a deal to trade it in, the muffler rusted through. I only had the car for a little more than 3 years and under 40K miles.
One mistake I made was using multiple dealers for service, and one would invariably blame one of the others for incompetence. Dealing with VWoA was quite unsatisfactory — it would take months for them to respond to my handwritten complaint letters, and then they would spout the boilerplate about dealers being independent businesses without any attempt to act as a referee.
The car looked a lot like this one, except of course mine was US-spec.
That’s identical to my friend Jim’s car that I drove when almost new in Boulder. It was a fun car to drive for sure, and I like the color!
I first drove a Golf (Rabbit) a few years after its launch, and it was pretty amazing for the time. It only took me 40 years to buy one (though in full disclosure I did briefly own a Scirocco in 1980). I’d rank the Golf along with the first Taurus and the Tesla Model 3 as the most significant cars I’ve driven; though the Taurus more for its significance for Detroit than globally.
“And Audi was already at work on an even smaller, highly space-efficient transverse-engine FWD hatch, the Audi 50.”
The car we know as the Audi 50, which certainly played a role in the development of the VW Golf, wasn’t originally an Audi project.
Rather, when NSU fell to VW, it had two cars in development: the almost finished mid-size K70 (which later came onto the market as the VW K70) and a subcompact named K50. VW inhereted them both.
This “NSU K50” was further developed and initially launched as the Audi 50 and later on, with stripped-down features, as the VW Polo.
The importance of NSU (not Audi !) for VW’s survival cannot be overstated.
Significantly, it was NSU’s chief developer, Hans-Georg Wenderoth, who was entrusted with the development of the Golf at VW.
AI tells me VW has sold over 37 Million variations of the Golf since 1974. And that’s from March of 2024. Far more than the 21.5 Million Beetles ever sold.
However Golfs and Beetles pale in comparison to the 50 Million Corollas sold since 1966.
Just some trivia, for many years at a stretch, the VW Golf was our most searched used car on the interwebs. Only recently surpassed by the…VW Polo. Number three is the VW Tiguan.
Size-wise, the current Polo is as big (or compact) as a Golf IV.
The Golf I was hands down my favourite car of the era. The cars just plain drove beautifully and the chair height seats were very comfortable. I came across many of them during my shady used car years. My favourite by far was a 1980 Rabbit Diesel L model, a two door. That little car drove beautifully and got 50 MPG (Imperial).
My Golf VII is a direct descendant.
“My favorite by far was a 1980 Rabbit Diesel L model, a two-door. That little car drove beautifully and got 50 MPG (Imperial).”
Excuse me – may I ask: Did you drive it with or without hearing protection?
In terms of global impact, I’m hard-pressed to think of a modern car that comes close. Aside from the 37+ million of them VW has sold over the years, the Golf completely redefined the C-segment, which up to that point was exemplified by extremely conventional RWD cars like the Ford Escort and Toyota Corolla. As much as I am NOT a fan of the Germanized Giugiaro styling, it fundamentally altered the normative parameters of compact car styling as well. In that regard, its impact is less visible in the U.S. because of Americans’ disdain for hatchbacks on anything that’s not an SUV or crossover, but there’s a very stark difference in smaller car design pre- and post-Golf.
I don’t disagree that they’re a reliability cautionary tale: Much like 210delray, I have bad history with these cars, having been stranded by my family’s 1983 Rabbit an unforgivable number of times to sustain many positive associations. But, there’s reliability and then there’s design and concept.
“But, there’s reliability and then there’s design and concept”
Unfortunately all too often with German cars, the twain rarely meet.
As a grade school student, I bought the September 1980 edition of Motor Trend, as it was the 1981 domestic new car issue. I was initially primarily interested in reading about the brand new Chrysler K-Cars.
Going away, it was the MT project Rabbit Turbo Diesel that intrigued, and inspired me, the most. They toured the country with the VW, and gave it away in a draw. Still remember the pic of the winner. I liked its gold and brown colour scheme. Its mileage was exceptional, as was the technology, for the time. Mileage was in the 50-60+ MPG range. The Rabbit still seemed reasonably cutting edge, to the domestics. As the Escort/Lynx, were so underpowered upon launch.
Not the most influential imho, but maybe one of the most influenced global cars of the last 50 years, having had many parents. Here in the States, it was the ’76 Honda Accord that really changed expectations, and it’s hard to describe the aura that it cast when it first appeared. In a way, it was the Beetle’s replacement, for a generation of buyers who were ready to trade up.
Back in 1978, I traded in my 71 Plymouth Sport Suburban for a used 75 4-door “swallowtail” Rabbit in bright yellow. Suddenly I was driving half of the car I had been. Since it was as basic as can be, I replaced the rubber floor mats with Astroturf and added chrome mud flaps and gradient red-orange-yellow striping to the bodyside. Once did a 540-degree spin on a snow-covered hill with a buddy in the car and plowed back-end into a snowbank. I’d panicked and stepped on the brakes without clutching, causing the car to stall. No problem! Started it right back up and the front wheel drive did it’s thing and we continued on our way. Had a lot of fun and memorable day trips in that car with several friends.
I always thought the Honda Accord was more influential than the Rabbit. Honda sold it as a complete car. It was very well equipped, a very nice interior, a 5-speed manual transmission and and a very smooth engine with the CVVC combustion chamber that did not require a catalytic converter. Need I say more?
‘Global’ is the keyword here.
+1
The Rabbit/Golf was also accessible to more people, as an entry-level economy-class car. Not as many people could afford an Accord.
The Accord made a bigger splash in the U.S., but as a design, it was (like all of Honda’s 70s water-cooled cars) essentially a scaled-up Civic, and neither most of its principal features nor its design language had an unusually long lifespan. The CA and CB Accords of the ’80s and ’90s were called Accords, but other than the name, they had very little in common with the 1976 original. Of course, being able to evolve a model line without losing the plot or embarrassing themselves so badly they had to scrap the name and start over is itself an achievement, but it makes the 1976 car just the first of a long and varied line rather than a game-changing paradigm shift.
Didn’t the Honda Civic predate the VW Golf, and at least in the US, have more long term success? It has always been transverse engine FWD just like the Golf (and unlike the Corolla)
The Rabbit did an insane amount of damage to VW’s repuation/brand equity/goodwill. At least here in the US. These were unreliable pieces of junk. A good idea horrendously executed. The Beetle was reliable, cheap, easy to fix by any monkey with a screwdriver and a socket set.
Go look at VW USA’s sales figures in the 70s/80s. From a high of 570k units in 1970, their sales floundered and then fell of an absolute cliff in the late 80s/early 90s to about 50k units. So many people who had a good car with their Beetle traded it for a Rabbit. Then quickly dumped that for a Japanese car and swore off VW forever.
The reliability issues were solved by 1977.
They absolutely were not. The awful experience 210delray recalls is not far removed from the dire experience of my family’s 1983, which was comically unreliable and expensive to fix.
My sister in law bought a new Rabbit in ’77, my other sister in law bought a 1977 Corolla. The Rabbit was a nightmare and sold after 3 years. The Corolla was driven daily for 9 years, giver to her daughter, and finally died of rust after 12 years total. H2O cooled VWs have been unreliable for generations.
Part of the issue was the appreciate of the German mark vs the US dollar in the 70’s. Remember, Nixon took the US off the gold standard in early the 70’s.
VW cut too many corners on the Rabbit to keep the price as low as possible which hurt the quality of components.
Eventually, VW opened an assembly plant in Pennsylvania to gain some margin, but the car lost its Euro flavor in the process.
I find it interesting to compare the Rabbit/Golf’s quality with that of the Chevy Vega (recently reposted here at CC). They both seem to be nearly equal in their awfulness.
But here may be the big difference: on those rare occasions when a Rabbit was running properly, it was a fun, enjoyable world-beater.
The Vega? Not so much. I’d go so far as to suggest the Rabbit was something akin to a very cheap European exotic, like a poverty-spec compact-class Ferrari. The Chevy Vega was just a grungy, shrunken domestic car with no redeeming values, even when brand-new.
Great photo starting off this feature.
I had an opportunity to test a 74 Super Beetle for a radio feature as I was finishing up my post-secondary schooling. The Beetle was on list for new post-grad transportation. And it was a very nice car with desirable features. However, I was reminded of an older Beetle owned by my friend’s brother and how awful it was to ride in during the winter–with no gas heater. I also felt the design of the Beetle was dated and long due for a change and said so in my feature. The comment did not go over well with the dealer. I do recall many seasoned automotive writers felt the same way.
Had the Mark I Golf been introduced a year earlier in the Canadian market I probably would have bought that as my first car. I’ve always been a fan of the Golf and that was strengthened in 1983 when I got to drive a neighbours GTI one day. What a fun car!
I know these are good cars, I just can’t love them due to having spent a good chunk of my childhood riding around in my parent’s 1979 Rabbit. They bought it new in Indiana and we soon moved to Houston, Texas, where it’s lack of AC and black vinyl insides weren’t very compatible with the evil weather. The lack of opening front wing windows or rear windows didn’t help things. I also was a little embarrassed that my family had such a basic little car when it seemed like all the other kids’ parents had more substantial rides. From what I can recall, it was fairly reliable, so I suppose my family got the last laugh on many of those other 80s lemons. Not that I cared much about such things. I might have liked it better if it was still around when I started driving, but it got replaced by a 85 Saab 900, with AC and cloth seats. Much better!
In late 1987 I went from a 1980 Fiesta Decor to a 1988 Golf Cabriolet because it was the closest thing to the Fiesta but was an upgrade. Drove for two years then my mom took it over (because I had a company car); she drove it nearly 10 years more.
Both were the most fun cars I ever owned (Brabus FourTwo would be 3rd place, maybe only because of shitty Getrag automated manual transmission).
Of note, for some reason in 1989 refresh, for the US market, VW did not offer leather, p/w, power top, or an automatic.
The Rabbit taught me an invaluable lesson. I owned two in the early 80’s, an orange ’75 and a Westmorland-built ’77 in baby blue. The ’77 had a 5 gallon auxiliary gas tank in the spare tire well, which gave it amazing range and produced more than a few puzzled looks when filling up.
I thought they were great cars because they were so easy to fix when something went wrong. What it took me about three years to realize was that something was ALWAYS going wrong. I don’t want to know how many Saturdays went into keeping them on the road. I changed out more alternators that I can remember. I was an enthusiastic amateur mechanic-dumbass, armed with Kmart tools and a dog-eared copy of Richard Sealey’s vastly entertaining How to Keep Your Volkswagen Rabbit Alive. I ultimately came to regard that book as borderline evil, though as it cheerfully proclaims on the cover, it’s written for the “Compleat Idiot,” and I certainly qualified. Anyone with a lick of sense would have dumped both cars within weeks of buying them.
When I finally wised up, I had learned a fundamental truth: reliability beats fixability, hands down. Every time.
Invaluable.
Not so many mechanical Golf issues known here in the old lands – apart from the notorious oil burning.
A much bigger problem was the rust infestation of the bodies of earlier models (those with the thin sheet metal bumpers, as pictured above by 210delray).
There are rumors that VW in its home country bought up huge numbers of early Golfs after a few years to get them off the road. So that the sight of those piles of rust wouldn’t tarnish the entire company’s reputation.
The most influential global car in the past 50 years is the Range Rover. In versions big and small, it’s now what every maker sells. And, as CC has documented, people like sitting up higher as a natural preference, so it will stay that way. And yes, it’s a “car”. That was its biggest impact (although not at all obvious at the time): it bridged that gap. No-one, except Americans, called it a “truck”.
The Golf was certainly hugely influential in the segment it created: it’s called the Golf segment in Europe, after all. And the original was a massively competent car (with caveats). But I don’t see its enduring influence in mid-sizers, let alone large cars (which stayed essentially RWD for ages). It certainly can be said that a large market segment had to match the general design and competency of the VW to be a player from thereon.
Caveats? The ones oft mentioned above. The things were just hopelessly flimsy, and in hard conditions like the US or the (differently hard) conditions of Australia, the Golf screwed the brand. They were shockingly bad.
Honestly, folk would leave for Sunday drive including some bumpy dirt roads and they’d arrive home – if not in a tow-truck – with just spluttering chassis, the occupants filthy and chattering to themselves like loons and frozen stiff in the breeze.
For suvs it was hardly the Range Rover but most certainly was the 1984 XJ Jeep Cherokee:
“This generation of Cherokee would eventually be well known as the innovator of the modern SUV, as it spawned competitors, and other automakers noticed that this Jeep design began replacing regular cars.[7] It also began to supplant the role of the station wagon and “transformed from truck to limousine in the eyes of countless suburban owners.”[8] The XJ is a “significant link in the evolution of the 4×4.”
An unreliable 2 dr body on frame V8 luxury 4×4 mainly for the well heeled Town & Country set hardly qualifies as historically influential, while the Renault/AMC lightweight uni-body 4/6cyl, 2 or 4 dr developed by Renault/AMC’s Francois Castaing and Roy Lunn, originally styled by Dick Teague, spawned a whole new class of SUVs leading directly to the RAV4s and CRVs so many of us, now spreading from the US to the world, drive now.
Robert Cumberford (Automobile and R&T) correctly called the XJ one of the most influential vehicles of all time, one that’s evolved to become even more influential than the Golf, a class of cars fading fast in favor of the Swiss-Army knife of vehicles, one that suits the purposes of more people than any other.
That’s a very credible argument, and the unibody design of the Jeep IS the thing everyone now sells. I could add to what you say by adding that the RR was hugely pricey in most markets, and BL-ishly unreliable too, so hardly influential.
But I do maintain that the concept of the RR was always the influential reference point, that is, a car-like SUV. (They’re actually VERY trucky-clumsy to drive, in truth!) The poshness, and famous handsomeness, of the RR set the appeal, and that’s the template that was emulated. Even by the XJ Jeep, in 2-door form.
I wonder why your comments go to the trash but your immediate followup comment advising everyone of such invariably posts….?
Maybe swap it around. The first comment should be “I shall be posting something you’ll want to read.” which can go straight to the trash by itself and then actually post the meat and potatoes you meant to serve up in the first place which now might make it to the fore without intervention.
It might work. But probably not. Perhaps “it” just knows something nobody else does…
If we’re keeping score, the Jeep SJ Wagoneer preceded the Range Rover by about seven years, and eventually acquired its own Buick V-8 for a while. The Range Rover would probably have come to pass even if the SJ didn’t exist — convergent evolution, that — but the XJ was intended as a direct successor to the SJ, although the latter’s popularity kept it in production into 1991.
From the opening text:
the Golf/Rabbit—became the most influential global compact car, exceeding even the influence of the Beetle. Somehow the word “compact” got left off the title. My bad. But carry on…
One of my “h/s”, friends had a “78”. Green, faux wood, sides. Remember few, other than that one with the “woody, look”.
They had it foa # of years that I know of;not sure if they got it new.
Apparently it must be their poor reliability for the reason why I haven’t seen one in my neck of the woods which is the East Bay of the SF Bay Area. They were quite common in the day, like Beetles, but I can’t recall one this century. I still see Beetles on the road and parked in driveways. Closest I ever came to riding in one was a girlfriends mid-80s Jetta diesel in 90-91.
My parents bought a Rabbit new in 1978. Great fun to drive and generally reliable for the times. On several occasions after stopping during a long drive in warm weather, the engine would not start. After cooling down for 30 minutes or so, it would fire right up. I think the fuel injection would get vapor locked.