(This blog post originally appeared on my now-defunct Volkswagen Golf 8 blog.)
I went to the New York Auto Show last month for the first time in four years, and even though many brands chose not to display their latest cars (least of all Mercedes-Benz and Cadillac), Volkswagen was there. and unlike its 2022 New York Auto Show display (which I saw on YouTube), this year the VW display actually didn't suck. There was an example of every vehicle Volkswagen sells in the U.S., along with the as-yet-unreleased ID. Buzz minivan.
Above is an example of the Mark 8 Volkswagen Golf GTI, the photograph taken by yours truly. Finally, I got to not only see a GTI in person, I got to sit in it - in the driver's seat and also the back seat. I played around with the much-ballyhooed touchscreen controls . . . and I was utterly frustrated at trying to master it. I can say without fear of contradiction that this touchscreen was a bad idea . . . and the sliders are worse. (This is precisely why, the for the first time in recent memory, Car and Driver did not include the Golf GTI on its annual 10Best list for 2023.)
A VW product specialist saw me admiring the GTI while in the driver's seat, and he asked me if I was a Volkswagen customer. I told him that I certainly was, and I had owned a fourth-generation Golf and I currently own a sixth-generation Golf, both base models, and I told him that I was very disappointed with the lack of a base model in the States. He apologized, but he added that sport utility vehicles are what sells, and 83 percent of VW's sales (five out of six vehicles sold) are now sport utility vehicles. (And, as noted, that figure was higher - 90 percent in the first quarter of this year.)
I'm glad that the auto shows are back in New York. But they won't be the same as they were before the pandemic. And neither, in North America anyway, will Volkswagen.
My blog advocating that the base eighth-generation Volkswagen Golf be included in the U.S. and Canadian Volkswagen lineups is being terminated as of April 30.
I have numerous reasons for ending my blog. No one is engaging with me, I'm running out of things to say, and my readership is puny . . . but most of all, VW is obviously not bring the base Golf back to North America any time soon or any time later. This should have been apparent to me when Volkswagen AG decided that it was a waste of time trying to convince enough Americans to buy their European products, like hatchbacks, to make VW a big player in the United States (something it's never been, even when it was the top selling import car in the United States thanks to the Beetle, because the import market was much smaller then), and so Volkswagen wants to offer more American-style vehicles, like SUVs.
Did I happen to mention that SUVs accounted for five out of six Volkswagens sold in the U.S. in 2022?
War's over. I surrender. Volkswagen has betrayed its American fan base. I don't think I'll buy a new Volkswagen until and unless I move to Europe . . . and my only business with Volkswagen while I still live in the States is and will be buying new parts to keep my Mark 6 Golf going.
The eighth generation of the Volkswagen Golf finally debuted this past Thursday in Wolfsburg in an event at the local soccer stadium there that sometimes felt like a movie premiere. German actresses Emilia Schüle and Andrea Sawatzki were in attendance, as was Sawatzki's husband, actor Christian Berkel. The biggest star in attendance was Giorgetto Giugiaro, the Italian car stylist who designed the original Golf (the Rabbit to Americans and Canadians), and he sketched a Mark 1 Golf in real time, creating an instant collectors item. Finally, after all of the pomp and circumstance, Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess presented the car that will be Volkswagen's global mainstay for at least the next six to seven years.
The car's styling wasn't a complete surprise, though. The German auto press got a hold of official pictures of the car and published them a day in advance. Given that the car used to be called the Rabbit in America, it seems that someone let the bunny out of the bag.
As you can see, the spy photos taken of the new car while it was being developed were pretty spot-on. It's a slight evolutionary change from the previous Golf, with wide, narrow headlights and subtle sculpted lines along the upper sides. The real changes are inside; it has a digital instrument panel, an upright touchscreen, and "sliders," touch-sensitive controls to set the climate control system or to operate the sunroof. Other controls are voice-activated, such as the power windows (I miss the old cranks!), and the transmission shifter is a little switch instead of a large lever. The car can also communicate with other vehicles to alert you of an accident or road construction, and it also connects directly with Alexa and receives updates to the electronics from the Internet, not unlike updates for your personal computer.
All this tech is going to take some time to get used to, but of course, the 1975 Rabbit had so much technological advances over the old Beetle that it took a while for people to acclimate themselves to that car. My only concern is that Volkswagen may have trouble getting everything working right in the first couple of model years.
Volkswagen has promised connectivity combined with fuel efficiency and modern convenience, saying that the Golf will continue to provide a desirable driving experience with all of the latest and most modern amenities. The most common engine for the new Golf is likely to be a 1.5-liter turbo four, and hybrid and diesel powerplants will also be available.
As for its American debut . . . well, yeah, that's still up in the air. Diess said that the car will be available in Germany and Austria in December, in rest of Europe in early 2020, and in the United States and other markets some time after. But, as I've already made clear, only the GTI and the R are confirmed for the United States so far, and Scott Keogh continues to say that the base Golf remains under consideration. But with most Americans never having been all that enamored with the Golf - maybe because of the American Rabbit's knack for burning motor oil, but also because it's a hatchback - and with more and more Yanks opting for sport utility vehicles, the base Mark 8 Golf may be as accessible for Americans as an Emilia Schüle movie. I must admit, with all of the technology the latest Golf has, I'm not sure I can afford it, and I'm not so sure I want to bother with all of the high-tech features in it; also, I don't use Alexa. But again, if all I can buy is the even more expensive GTI or R, then I might just keep my Mark 6 Golf (the stalling problem of which I finally got fixed for good) until it's old enough to qualify for historic license plates. And at least I'll still have a car I can play my CDs in.
And if the base Mark 8 Golf does come to America, I'll keep an open mind about all of the high-tech features. It's estimated to cost the equivalent of $25,690 - pretty steep, about six grand more than what I paid for my Mark 6 Golf, but far less than I can expect to pay for a GTI. The R? Yeah, I don't even want to think about how much that will cost. No . . . no, as always, the base Golf is all I want. Maybe a base Golf of any generation isn't someone's idea of an enthusiast's car, but it gets me enthusiastic enough. And if Volkswagen of America CEO Scott Keogh wants to get me enthused enough to buy a Volkswagen as my next new car, he'll decide to bring the base Mark 8 Golf over.
In that spirit, I've started a Facebook page to urge that the Mark 8 Golf be brought to the United States. Please be nice to me and click "Like" on it. And call Volkswagen of America at 1-800-822-8987, 8 A.M. to 9 P.M. Eastern Time, from Monday to Friday, to urge that the base Golf 8 be included in VW's U.S. lineup.
Here is a production version of the eighth-generation Volkswagen Golf, the world premiere of which is due next Thursday in Wolfsburg. (The picture was nabbed by a resourceful chap in Slovakia.) And whether or not the United States gets it in its VW lineup is still up in the air. That was the message from Volkswagen of America as recently as this past Friday (October 12).
The decision on that question, as always, rests with one man and one man only - Scott Keogh, Volkswagen of America's president and chief executive officer. Other VW managers can persuade him one way or the other, but the final call is his alone to make.
Keogh (above) has been CEO of Volkswagen of America for a year now, and it remains to be seen how successful he will ultimately be in his job. He has tough shoes to fill, given some of the legends among his predecessors, such as Carl Hahn, who built up the Volkswagen brand in North America in the early sixties (and later became chairman of Volkswagen AG, the only former Volkswagen of America president to achieve that position), J. Stuart Perkins, who succeeded Hahn and led Volkswagen to its best years during the era of the Beetle and later oversaw the transition to watercooled VW models, and Bill Young, who saved Volkswagen from oblivion in America with his insistence of better quality control from the factory in Mexico that began supplying cars to the U.S. and Canada in the early nineties. Keogh has a tall order; he's faced with the task of keeping Volkswagen commercially successful in an era of sport-utility vehicles while having to balance that with the desires of America VW die-hards who prefer the traditional small hatchbacks and sedans that Volkswagen has long offered.
Right now, Keogh is pushing for more SUV models and even a pickup truck in Volkswagen's U.S. lineup, in order to appeal to those buyers (who make up seven out of ten new-vehicle customers), even as he has to decide on the base Golf's future in a market where hatchbacks are spectacularly unpopular but where loyal Volkswagen customers demand such a car because of their own tastes, which are outside the mainstream. Keogh has talked up SUVs in the motoring press like a disc jockey talks up the latest Ariana Grande record on pop radio, but he's made it clear that hatchbacks won't be cut from the U.S. lineup entirely. But which hatchbacks will stay? He has sent signals that only the Golf GTI and Golf R, the Golf's performance variants, will stay in the U.S. market because he still wants to cater to VW "enthusiasts" - suggesting that no one could get enthusiastic or excited over a base Golf hatchback. (I happen to be a VW enthusiast who does.) On the other hand, Keogh has also hinted that the base Mark 8 Golf is assured, despite the fact that it hasn't been confirmed.
"We will be launching the Golf VIII," Keogh told Automobile magazine in May 2019, "which will be the next-gen and it will have a GTI, so we're 100 percent on board [with that model]. But right now the GTI is going to stay GTI. And the [eighth-generation version of that] will come, and it's going to be as cool as hell."
Koegh has already disappointed many VW enthusiasts in America by canceling the Golf wagon and giving a thumbs-down to the idea of the Golf-sized ID.3 electric hatchback for sale in North America. (We're getting an electric crossover instead.) While I understand Keogh's desire to sell the more popular car styles to keep Volkswagen in business in America, I hope he remembers the loyalists - those of us who still bought VWs when consumer magazines told us not to, bought them during the depths of VW's misfortune in the early nineties, and stood by the brand even after the diesel scandal broke. I hope he recognizes, as I told him in three separate letters (full disclosure), that the Golf embodies Volkswagen in the watercooled age and that the base car should remain in the U.S. lineup, with only enough cars for those who want it. So maybe I should be happy that Keogh is trying to add a pickup truck to Volkswagen s North American lineup; a vehicle like that would certainly offset losses on every base Golf VW sells to loyal American customers who want the same car their German (and Canadian) counterparts get to buy.
My gut instinct is that Koegh would rather not take the base Golf out of the U.S. market, but he is aware of how poorly they sell not just against SUVs and sedans, but maybe even other hatchbacks, and his decision will ultimately be made based on the numbers. If he can't justify keeping the base Golf in America, he'll drop it. If he can find a way to include it in the U.S. lineup going forward, he'll keep it.
That said, I leave you with this. Scott Keogh says he wants to make Volkswagen matter in the U.S. again, though it's always mattered to the VW loyalists here. So, a lot of us will be watching every move he makes with baited breath. Especially his next one.
The eighth generation of the the globally bestselling Volkswagen Golf, which is set to debut on October 24, is easily the most eagerly awaited new car of 2019 . . . unless you live in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. The standard version of the hatchback is still a question mark for the U.S. market, with many a smug automotive journalist eager to answer it with an emphatic "No!" In fact, a decision on whether or not to offer the standard Mark 8 Golf in These States has not been made, although the traditional American disregard for hatchbacks in general and Volkswagen hatchbacks in particular that began after the old Rabbits ended up consuming way too much motor oil doesn't bode well for those of us silly Yanks who actually share the rest of the world's superior taste in automobiles. Right now, Volkswagen of America is touting the new Atlas CrossSport SUV. I'll pass.
Interestingly, if the base Mark 8 Golf isn't offered in America, this wouldn't be the first time a Golf model hasn't made it to the States. Several Golf variants have failed to make it over here, and to Canada as well (though the next standard Golf has been confirmed for the Great White North). Here are twelve Golf models that never saw the inside of a Volkswagen dealership in the New World.
The Rallye Golf. I've already mentioned this car before, but I mention it here again for the sake of completion. Though, I can't say anything about the 1989-90 Mark-2-vintage Rallye Golf that I haven't already said. With a supercharged 160-horsepower engine and all-wheel-drive, it performs aggressively as it looks, and even though Rallye Golfs are legally entering the United States thanks to the fact that they've passed the 25-year minimum age required for importation into this country, some Americans got to experience the car's prowess when it was first new. New Hampshire rally racer Tim O'Neil, in the late eighties and early nineties a factory driver for Volkswagen, got to acquire and race in one back then, and he still keeps it in his fleet in his current profession as a driving instructor.
The Golf G60. The Mark 2 Golf-based G60 (below) was a kinder, gentler variant of VW's supercharging program. It was less potent than the Rallye Golf but its performance was still nothing to sneeze at, with front-wheel drive and a normal eight-valve engine and bearing the same horsepower rating as the Rallye Golf. Emissions standards in the U.S., however, prevented its inclusion in the American market, and it was forbidden fruit in Canada as well.
The Golf Country. This is without question one of the weirdest Golfs ever conceived. A part of the Golf's second generation, the Golf Country was shown at the 1989 Geneva Auto Show as a concept car, but it was so loved by the auto press that VW decided to produce it.
Volkswagen would make Golf Country vehicles in Wolfsburg and then send them to the Austrian truck builder Steyr-Daimler-Puch in Austria to be outfitted with a special version of VW's Syncro all-wheel drive system, with a 8.2-inch ground clearance, along with a skid plate protecting the engine bay, bullbars at both ends, and a spare wheel appended to the rear. It was essentially VW's equivalent to the four-wheel drive Eagle sedan and wagon produced by American Motors in the U.S. in the 1980s.
The Golf Country was a part-time all-wheel-drive car, but it could tackle almost any off-road terrain when the Syncro system was turned on. Only about 7,700 Golf Country cars were built in 1990 and 1991, and had VW sent any of them to the United States, it would likely have generated more showroom traffic than the standard Golf - or the Jetta - was generating at the time.
The Mark 3 Golf Variant. Again, I mentioned this before, but I include it here for the sake of completion. Volkswagen apparently didn't think the station wagon version of the third-generation Golf - the first Golf wagon ever produced - would sell here, and so we missed out on it. But its successor did make it here as a Jetta wagon, and the Golf Variant was sold as a Jetta through the fourth, fifth, and sixth generation, assuming the Golf badge in the U.S. with the seventh. But the Golf wagon has come full circle and so won't be available in the U.S. in the eighth generation - but then, you know that.
The Golf Plus. The Golf Plus was essentially a standard Golf with minivan-like proportions. It looked sort of stubby, as if both ends had been compressed against the center, but it clearly had plenty of headroom and a little extra room for tall objects in the back. The Golf Plus was a part of the fifth and sixth generations; above is a fifth-generation model.
Its proportions would undoubtedly have been seen as bulbous and awkward in North America at the time, yet the Chevrolet Trax, based on the Sonic, is the same general idea (though the Trax is officially a "crossover.")
The CrossGolf. And speaking of crossovers, Volkswagen produced this Golf-based crossover vehicle specifically for the European market. Because it looks more like a hatchback on steroids than a crossover, I doubt that this would have found much of a customer base in North America. Like the Golf Plus, it lasted two generations (the fifth-generation-based CrossGolf model is shown above).
The Golf GTD. Like the GTI, but with a diesel engine. It was introduced in Europe as an alternative to the gas-powered hot hatch at a time of rising fuel prices. Even without the TDI scandal, which pretty much put an end to diesel-powered passenger cars in the States, it would never have made it in America, where a diesel-powered sport compact is considered a contradiction in terms.
The Golf GTE. Like the GTI, but with a plug-in gas-electric hybrid system. It was introduced in Europe as an alternative to the gas-powered hot hatch at a time of environmental awareness. Americans would have likely found this to be an even bigger contradiction in terms than a GTD. And to think a Mark 8 version of the GTE might yet make it to the New World. (Both the GTD and the GTE shown here are seventh-generation models.)
The Golf Mark 6 Cabrio. Almost forgot about this one, didn't we? Only the third Golf to be developed into a convertible, the droptop version of the sixth-generation model was not sold in America so as not to cannibalize sales of the modern Beetle convertible. The Mark 6 Cabrio has since been discontinued.
Did I happen to mention that there was an R variant of the Mark 6 convertible as well? :-O
The Golf R wagon. Yes! A Golf R wagon, part of the seventh generation! A station wagon that's actually desirable! And VW didn't give it a chance here?
This would have made a whole lot more sense for the U.S. market than that silly Alltrack. Of course, for Americans who want a real German sports wagon, there will soon be the Audi RS6 Avant.
The Golf Sportsvan. Basically the same as the minivan-style Golf Plus, a derivative of the seventh-generation car, and as always, for people who wanted a minivan but wanted something closer to a standard Golf. Volkswagen's press release for this model summed it up like this: "With its raised seating position and a rear seat designed for longitudinal adjustment, the compact Golf Sportsvan boasts interior features that are normally only found on larger vans. This way, the Golf Sportsvan is popular with customers who want to sit a little higher, travel with children, need flexibility for their leisure activities or appreciate a large cargo space." In other words, a lot like the SUVs that are taking over in America and even in Europe. Which is why there will be no eighth-generation equivalent to this vehicle.
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How do these cars differ from the standard Mark 8 Golf, which may yet join this list of forbidden fruit for Americans? Mainly in this way; they're all special variations on or special high-performance versions of the basic Golf model. But the basic, standard Golf has always been a part of Volkswagen's U.S. lineup since it debuted here as the Rabbit. It's a simple, unpretentious car that isn't calibrated to run with a Porsche and doesn't pretend to be anything other than the no-nonsense hatchback that it is. It's the basis for every special Golf model Volkswagen has ever developed, from the GTI to the R, from the wagon to the Sportsvan. The special models are perfectly fine; they've been the fancy dishes meant for people who want something more than meat and potatoes. I see the base Golf as the meat and potatoes of not just the entire Golf lineup but of the entire Volkswagen brand. A U.S. lineup with the GTI and R variants of the Golf but not the base car is a hollow shell. And that's why I am going to continue to speak out for the base Golf 8's inclusion on the U.S. lineup.
After all indications pointed to the Volkswagen Golf Variant station being dropped with the coming of the car's eighth generation, VW confirmed that, uh, actually, a station wagon will be in the Mark 8 Golf lineup after all. I presume it will look much like the outgoing Mark 7 Golf wagon (shown below).
The Mark 8 Golf wagon won't come to the United States, as sport utility vehicles have taken over in this market and actually account for 52 percent of VW's U.S. sales, but it will likely be available in Canada, where compact VW wagons are still popular and where the four-door base hatchback has already been confirmed. This recent development may actually make it seem less likely that the base hatchback is included in the U.S. lineup when the eighth generation arrives. I suppose that, if I want a base Mark 8 Golf, I could go north of the border, buy one, and bring it back to the States, but after all of the costs to federalize it for American roads, it might be less expensive to buy a GTI.
And while all this is going on, Volkswagen has suggested that maybe, just maybe, the electric ID.3 hatchback can be sold in North America after all . . . but only in Canada. Here in the States? Absolutely not. As a hatchback buyer, I clearly live in the wrong country. It's also becoming obvious that, after decades of being lock and step with American automotive tastes, Canadian tastes in cars are beginning to diverge from such tastes south of the 49th parallel.
Meanwhile, I have persistently written Scott Keogh, the president of Volkswagen of America, to urge him to include the base Mark 8 Golf in Volkswagen's U.S. lineup every time a development in VW's plans for the base Golf are updated. I wrote him thrice - the first time to protest the possible discontinuation of the base Golf in the U.S. market when Motor1.com first reported it as fact rather than as the rumor it is, a second time after the wagon was dropped, and, more recently, a third time after the base Golf was confirmed for Canada, which I saw as a hopeful sign for the car's American availability. In each case a spokesman for Keogh has called me personally (another hopeful sign) to thank me for my input and for my loyalty and passion for the brand and the Golf, and also to say that, while no decision has been made on the base Mark 8 Golf yet, I have indeed been heard. Online and on-call representatives at VW Customer Care have heard from me too.
But I'm only one person. The people at Volkswagen of America aren't going to keep the base Golf in its lineup after 2020 just because I want them to. That's why I keep reminding VW fans on Facebook and here on my blog that more of us have to speak up and press for the base Golf to remain in the U.S. lineup. So go here to contact someone at Volkswagen of America online, or call Volkswagen of America at 1-800-822-8987, 8 A.M. to 9 P.M. Eastern Time, from Monday to Friday, to urge that the base Golf be continued in VW's U.S. lineup when the Mark 8 (below) comes out. The eighth-generation car is due for its world premiere in the coming month. It's crunch time.
It's crunch time for me too, personally. My 2012 Golf has repeatedly stalled at stops while I'm on the road, and repeated efforts to have it fixed have so far failed. I can't understand why such a simple problem can't be resolved. I want to keep my car, but that might not be possible. If I can't get it properly fixed, I'll have to get rid of it, and of course I hope to get another Golf in its place, but in that case I'd better act fast while I still have a chance to buy a new Golf from a VW dealer - and American dealerships, of course, keep so few of them in stock. If I end up having to get another car and I don't get a new Golf soon, it may be too late. >:-(
If I do get a new Golf, though, this much is certain - it won't be a two-door model. The two-door Golf of the outgoing seventh generation has already been dropped in North America, and the eighth generation won't have a two-door version available anywhere in the world - the two-door Golf is being dropped completely.
Volkswagen's new ID.3 electric hatchback (below), which is about the same size as the Golf, is compact, technologically advanced, incredibly futuristic, and ergonomically friendly for driver and passenger alike. It's a Tesla for the masses.
And we in North America aren't getting it.
If you live in North America and you want an electric VW, it's either going to be a Microbus-styled minivan (fine) or a crossover (not fine, given that crossovers always look like station wagons designed by a committee). Volkswagen of America's current president, Scott Keogh, says he regrets his decision not to offer the ID.3 in the New World on emotional grounds - he says his company car is an e-Golf - but he's satisfied with his decision on business grounds. He says the compact hatchback class is simply too insignificant in North America to offer a $33,000 electric car in the segment for sale at a profit or even as a loss leader.
The same, of course, goes for the Polo, a car Volkswagen has manufactured since 1975 and has never been sold in the United States or Canada. VW came close to selling it in North America after the 2008 financial crisis and a spike in gas prices. My fourth-generation Golf was beginning to wear out. A new fifth-generation Polo was coming. I was ready to buy it! I wanted it! But it didn't come. Gas prices went down, and so did the demand for small cars, even though the small-car market hadn't evaporated completely. After all, Ford had the Fiesta and General Motors had the Chevrolet Sonic.
When the sixth generation of the Polo (above) came out in late 2017, Juergen Stackmann, the guy in charge of global sales at Volkswagen, explained why the U.S. wouldn't get it. "It doesn't make too much sense for us to bring a car like this, which has the substance of a class higher, into a segment that is so price driven in America," he said, explaining that the Fiesta, the Sonic and other subcompacts of the Polo's ilk cost less, and that the Polo was simply to well-appointed and too expensive to compete against them. Since then, the Fiesta - a nice little car but one that was notoriously unreliable - has been discontinued, as the U.S. market becomes more dominated daily by SUVs and light trucks, though the Sonic remains available going into 2020.
Volkswagen itself is concentrating more on SUVs in the U.S. (and Canada) because, we are told, Americans like SUVs. I don't. I hate them with a cold passion. And long-time Volkswagen customers don't like them very much either. The people buying Atlases and Tiguans - now comprising 54 percent of Volkswagen's American customers! - aren't VW enthusiasts. They're flexible buyers with no brand loyalty who could just as easily have bought a Ford Explorer or a Honda Pilot. Volkswagen is a brand for people who love to drive; SUV customers aren't engaged in driving any more than they have to be. For them, driving is just turning a steering wheel and knowing when to stop for a light. They buy SUVs because they want a family room on wheels. Complete with a TV screen for the kiddies. >:-(
Selling SUVs to suburban rubes was fine so long as Volkswagen of America pleased its loyal customers with small, nimble, economical driver's cars - the sort of cars that made Volkswagen so beloved in America in the first place - but Volkswagen of America seems to have walked away from all that. The ID.3 may have more technology than I want, but its small size and its thoughtful layout would be a winner for Americans and Canadians who want that sort of vehicle. The current Polo has the room and nimbleness of my mother's Honda Fit and the performance of my Golf - with a variety of engines to choose from, many of which have three cylinders. A lot of us would be willing to pay more for a car like the ID.3 or the Polo because we find them that desirable. But if Scott Keogh or anyone else doesn't think VW can sell enough of these cars in America and still offset its losses with all of those bug ugly wagons it's pushing, how can we convince anyone at the company to satisfy our preferences?
And then there's the base Mark 8 Golf (above). You know the story; I won't repeat it. Not being able to buy a Volkswagen you want because it isn't and/or never has been available here, like a Polo or an ID.3, is bad enough. But the idea of dropping from the U.S. lineup a car that has been available in the States for 45 years, the only car I ever bought new, once in 2000 and again in 2012 - that's too much. I'm not asking for the Polo or the ID.3 (not anymore, or at least not for now), but I continue to lobby Volkswagen of America to keep the base Golf in the U.S. lineup (and you know already about Canada), and I've even written to Wolfsburg, urging the parent company to ensure that Volkswagen of America continues to make the base Golf available in the U.S.
Maybe we can't have the quirkier, smaller and more interesting Volkswagens not sold on this side of the pond, but we should still have the base Golf, because there are still those of us VW loyalists who prefer hatchbacks and can't afford either a Golf GTI or a Golf R. We have to stir things up and make some damn noise. Contact Volkswagen of America at 1-800-822-8987, 8 A.M. to 9 P.M. Eastern Time, from Monday to Friday, and let them know that we VW fans won't stand for the base Golf being dropped when the eighth generation arrives.
The good news is that buyers in North America will be able to purchase the base version of the eighth-generation Golf (below). The bad news that these buyers are Canadian customers.
Volkswagen Canada was adamant about keeping the base Golf in its lineup when it heard that Volkswagen of America - to which the Canadian division is usually joined to the hip - was thinking of selling only the more expensive GTI and R variants in North America, and Volkswagen AG responded favorably. As much as I hope that the confirmation of the base Mark 8 Golf for north of the border means we could still get it on this side of the 49th parallel, we might still miss out on the car. This wouldn't actually be the first time Canada has gotten cars we Americans haven't. They got a Mercedes hatchback we never got, and Hyundai started selling cars in Canada four years before the brand debuted in the United States; its debut Canadian model was never sold here. Heck, I remember seeing four-door Honda Civic hatchbacks on a trip to Canada when I was fifteen, when the U.S. got only two-door Civic hatchbacks.
And this wouldn't be the first time that the Canadians get a Volkswagen model that we Americans don't. They got the Type 3 Notchback in the sixties; we only got the Fastback and Squareback.
It's also noteworthy that nearly three out of every four Golfs sold in Canada is a base model instead of a sport model; the opposite is true here, and Golfs account for only one out of ten Volkswagens sold in the U.S. while they account for one out of four sold in Canada. It seems like Canada is joining the rest of the world on the base Golf, while the U.S. can't be bothered. So think of the base Golf as the Paris Agreement of automobiles.
Meanwhile, Volkswagen is expanding its line of SUVs in America, and they now account for 54 percent of all vehicles VW sells here. I'm pissed off. I wonder how many other VW purists are pouring out their dinner over this.
There's still hope that the base eighth-generation Golf will still be available in the U.S. for the die-hard VW fans like myself who want one, but it's a slim chance at best. I doubt that there's anyone at Volkswagen of America who's willing to fight for loyal base-Golf customers as there is in Volkswagen Canada. I guess I'll have to hold on to my Mark 6 Golf for as long as I can if the base Mark 8 Golf doesn't get here. And when my car wears out, expect to see me at a VW dealer in the Detroit area.
Specifically, in Windsor, Ontario.
Buy a car in Canada and bring it back to the States? It can be done.
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