Those who are looking for car insurance may be interested to know more about the most popular Volkswagen cars of all time, which we have defined as those that are the best selling.
With sales of over 21m, the Volkswagen Beetle is cited as the best selling single design of car in history, and not merely the bestselling Volkswagen. The Beetle was also known as the Type 1, and was produced from 1938 until 2003. Beetles were manufactured in an air-cooled, rear-engine, rear wheel drive configuration, making it the longest running automobile in the world of a single design platform. The Beetle pioneered the affordable small car, alongside such cars as the Morris Minor, Fiat 500 and Citroen 2CV.
Its successor, the Volkswagen Golf, has been built in six generations since 1974. After the Volkswagen Group acquired Audi in 1964, Volkswagen made the most of its newly acquired engineering expertise to develop a modern front wheel drive car with a water cooled engine, leading to the introduction of both the Golf and the Passat.
The front wheel drive Golf was initially built mostly in the three door hatchback style, but has also spawned five door hatchback, estate, convertible and saloon variants over its long production run. A particularly successful guise was the GTi, which has been widely hailed as the first successful mass market “hot hatch”. The Volkswagen Passat, meanwhile, is a large family car that has been built in six generations since 1973, with present marketplace rivals including the Ford Mondeo. Over 15m Passats have been sold in total.
The Volkswagen Jetta is the saloon version of the Golf. It has been built continuously over five generations since August 1979. The Jetta was originally conceived when Volkswagen gave the Golf hatchback a conventional trunk, while the Jetta has also long been distinguished by additional styling changes, including both on the front end and to the interior. It has long been offered in five-seat saloon and five door estate variants.
The four generations of the Volkswagen Gol, meanwhile, have led to it becoming Brazil’s bestselling car. It was been built continuously by Volkswagen’s Brazilian arm since 1980, with sales of over 4,500,000. The Gol was developed in 1980 as a replacement for the Brasilia, which in turn had been a Brazilian market alternative to the Beetle. Its design was specific to Latin America, while the car even spawned many sporting variants, such as the GTi, which was the first Brazilian-built car to use fuel injection.
References
Volkswest.co.uk (2010). History of the Beetle. http://www.volkswest.co.uk/beetle_history.html
Volkswagen (2010). Volkswagen history timeline. http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/volkswagen-world/heritage/timeline
Christopher Santos (2010). First and Finest of the Hot Hatches. http://www.vw-one.co.uk/hello.htm
Volkswagen (2011). New Passat Estate. http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/#/new/passat-estate-vii
Top Gear (July 2000). Volkswagen Passat. http://www.topgear.com/uk/volkswagen/passat
John Simister (2010). Volkswagen Passat. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/motoring/road-tests/volkswagen-passat-2114828.html
Maps of World Cars (2010). Volkswagen Gol. http://www.mapsofworld.com/referrals/cars/small-cars/subcompact-cars/volkswagen-gol.html
Auto Express(2010). Volkswagen Jetta. http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/carreviews/newreviews/209645/volkswagen_jetta.html
Hannah Warder is a writer for MediaVest (Manchester) on a range of topics such as car insurance.