The Volkswagen Golf Mk1 is the first generation of a small family car manufactured and marketed by Volkswagen. It was noteworthy for signalling Volkswagen's shift of its major car lines from rear-wheel drive and rear-mounted air-cooled engines to front-wheel drive with front-mounted, water-cooled engines that were often transversely-mounted.

Successor to Volkswagen's Beetle, the first generation Golf debuted in Europe in May 1974 with styling by Giorgetto Giugiaro's Italdesign.[4]

Volkswagen began producing prototypes of possible Beetle replacements as far back as the early 1950s, and may have received design proposals from Porsche earlier than that. All of the internal projects' names started with "EA", standing for "Entwicklungsauftrag" and meaning "Development assignment". This work began during the tenure of Heinz Nordhoff, who was Director General of Volkswagen from 1948 to 1968.

In 1952 the company built the EA41 in collaboration with Pininfarina. Essentially a rebodied Beetle, it never went into production.[6]

The first EA47 prototype appeared in 1953; at least 11 more EA47 variations were built over the next three years.[7]

By the mid- to late-1950s, questions about the future of the Beetle began to be asked from outside the company. In 1957, an article with the title "Is the Volkswagen dated?" appeared in the West German magazine Stern. Two years later, a similar headline was used in an article in Der Spiegel weekly news.[8]: 236 

In 1958 Porsche began a project numbered 728 for a revised Beetle. A few years later this became the Volkswagen EA53. This project continued for a number of years and produced several prototypes, with early ones having bodywork designed by Porsche and later ones styled by Ghia. The EA53 eventually led to the Type 3 model.[9][10]: 92 

In 1957 another design study, the EA97, was started. This exercise was larger than the Beetle, but kept the usual rear-mounted powertrain. Two hundred instances of this design were built. Styling varied, depending on whether a particular car's bodywork was done by VW or by Ghia. Some cars’ looks echo the later Type 3 cars, although the EA97 was smaller. The last EA97 was built in 1960.[11] The EA97 would provide the basis for the Brasília model from Volkswagen do Brasil.[12]: 158 

The EA158 was a Beetle-successor project that started in 1962 with a unibody study by Pininfarina. As the project progressed the car grew in size and weight. Eventually it was rejected as a Beetle replacement, but served as the foundation of the subsequent 411 model.[13]


Volkswagen EA235 prototype (1967)
In 1967 another set of prototypes for possible Beetle replacements appeared in the form of the EA235 and EA235a.

In 1968 the last internal prototype for a Beetle replacement built under Nordhoff's direction appeared. This car, designated EA276, was a small three-door hatchback with front-wheel drive using a front-mounted Volkswagen air-cooled engine. The EA276 program was cancelled after the death of Nordhoff, but did find new life as the inspiration for the Brazilian Gol.[13]

During Nordhoff's time VW did broaden its product line with the launch of the VW 1500 in 1961 and the 411 in 1968. In 1964 the company acquired control of the Auto Union group from Daimler-Benz and with it the technologies of the constituent companies of DKW, Horch, Audi and Wanderer.

Kurt Lotz succeeded Nordhoff as Director General of Volkswagen from 1968 to 1971. Work to broaden the product line and find a replacement for the Beetle accelerated. Under Lotz Volkswagen acquired control of NSU in 1969. NSU was subsequently merged into the Auto Union group. One outcome of this acquisition was that the mid-sized front-wheel drive car that had been under development at NSU would reach the market, not as an NSU, but as the Volkswagen K70.

In 1968 another development project started named EA266. This project originated with Porsche, where it began as an internal project as early as 1966. This unusual design used a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout with a water-cooled inline four cylinder engine laid over on its side and mounted longitudinally under the floor of the rear of the passenger compartment.

In 1969, one year after the start of work at Volkswagen on the EA266, another project named EA337 was commissioned. This project would draw on engines and front-wheel drive technology from the Audi division of Auto Union.

In 1966 Volkswagen built almost 1.5 million automobiles and reported net profits of DM300,000,000.[8]: 238  By 1967 domestic sales had fallen to 370,000 units from a high of 600,000 units in 1965. A government-backed economic stimulus package was able to produce a rebound in sales.[8]: 243, 244  Beetle exports to the United States went from 232,550 in 1963 to 423,008 in 1968.[8]: 241 

Local competitors Ford of Europe and Opel launched new small car models targeted directly at Volkswagen's traditional market. Volkswagen's share of the German domestic car market dropped from 45% in 1960 to 26% in 1972.[8]: 239 

Profits fell from a high of DM330,000,000 in 1969 to DM12,000,000 in 1971, mainly due to slumping Beetle sales and high R&D costs.[8]: 245 

In 1971 the United States' government ended international convertibility of the US dollar to gold in what is termed the Nixon shock. One outcome of this was that the Deutsche Mark rose 40% against the US dollar in 1971. This, combined with a 10% import duty on cars entering the US, caused Beetle sales to plummet in what had become a critical market for Volkswagen. In 1973 the OPEC oil crisis hit, triggering a global recession. The German government responded with emergency measures banning private car use on certain days of the week and comprehensive speed limits.

In 1972 Opel's share of the German market rose to 20.4%, making them Germany's largest automobile manufacturer and overtaking Volkswagen in their domestic market.[14]

In 1972 the Center for Auto Safety published "Small—on safety: the designed-in dangers of the Volkswagen", which examined the safety deficiencies of the Beetle just as Ralph Nader's earlier book Unsafe at Any Speed had done for the Chevrolet Corvair.[15]

All of the foregoing combined to result in Volkswagen posting a DM807,000,000 loss in 1974. In the same year Volkswagen of America alone posted a DM200,000,000 loss.[8]: 246, 247 

Rudolf Leiding replaced Lotz as Director General of Volkswagen from 1971 to 1975. Commenting on the situation at Volkswagen as he found it, Leiding said: "The global situation for VW was more critical than we had once thought – to put it simply, we were dealing with the survival of a giant group, which employed more than 220,000 people worldwide ..."[16]

Two weeks after assuming the directorship, Leiding stopped work on the Porsche-designed EA266 and ordered all but two of the 50 prototypes built to that point to be destroyed.

In 1969 Lotz and Italian Volkswagen importer Gerhard R. Gumpert visited the Turin Auto Show. After selecting their six favourite cars of the show, they discovered that four of the six were designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro and his Italdesign studio.[17]

Giugiaro was invited to Wolfsburg in January 1970 to work on development project EA337.[18] The first thing he saw when he arrived at VW's research centre was a Fiat 128, completely disassembled and labelled.[19] The design brief provided by Volkswagen specified a C-segment car with a two-box body in three- and five-door versions. The client also provided Giugiaro with the basic dimensions and the power-train options.

Giugiaro produced a design that reflected his signature "origami" or "folded-paper" style, emphasizing sharp corners and flat planes. Giugiaro would come to consider the Mk1 Golf the most important design of his career.[20] Early prototypes included rectangular headlamps and wide tail-lamp assemblies. At least one pre-pr