VW Group has just announced that their hot hatch Golf has once again retained its title as the best selling car in Europe.
This is the 13th consecutive year that the Volkswagen Golf will take this impressive sales title. In fact, this particular Volkwagen model has been so successful that it actually held the title of the best selling car on the continent for nearly every year since 1983. The only 5 years in which the European sales crown was temporarily shifted to another model of car was in 1997, when it went to the Fiat Punto, in 2003 when it went to the Peugeot 206, in 2005 and 2006 when it went to the Vauxhall/Opel Astra and 2007 when it was awarded to the Peugeot 207.
According to Volkswagen (VW), around 312,000 of these ever-popular mid-sized VW hatchbacks were delivered to eager customers across Europe in the last year. More impressively too, over 40 percent of those Golfs, around 133,900 out of the 312,000, made its way into the hands of German buyers. Thereby incidentally making it Germany’s best selling new car in 2020 too.
It is equally impressive to discover that around 179,000 of the 312,000 Golf deliveries were made in the last year were made in the second half of the year. This 60 percent delivery figure in the last six months of 2020 was partly due to the Covid-induced production shut down that occurred at the beginning of the year, but more so because of the delayed launch of the new Mk8 iteration Golf, which only hit the market late last year.
VW also enjoyed having the second and third best selling new car in the country which were the Tiguan SUV and thePassat executive sedan.
Will the Golf Mk8 take the 2021 title as we see the VW fully-electric ID.3 car selling at a rapid rate since its launch.
Though no sales figures have yet been officially released by Volkswagen for the ID.3, seeing how the electric car revolution is in full-swing across Europe, to the point where VW has been continually ramping up production capacity for its new peoples’ EV, it will certainly be interesting to see if the ever-popular Golf will still retain its position as king of the European sales chart come at the end of the coming 12 months.
PRESS RELEASE: It is full speed ahead for the icon of the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand, the Golf, since all eight derivatives were made available in the fall of 2020. Last year it was once again the top-selling car in Europe with around 312,000 deliveries. The Wolfsburg figurehead was once again the top-selling car in Germany last year, too, with around 133,900 deliveries to customers. “In 2020 the Golf is still exactly where it belongs,” says Ralf Brandstätter, CEO of Volkswagen Passenger Cars.
“With the Golf 8 we are seamlessly continuing the success story of its previous generations. The car is continuing to set technical standards in many dimensions,” said Brandstätter. “After the outbreak of the coronavirus in spring interrupted the market launch that had just started, the Golf had a lot of catching up to do in the second half of the year.
In particular, the availability of all of the important model derivatives, such as the GTI, GTD und GTE, gave the Golf a second wind in the third quarter,” Brandstätter continued. The high demand for hybrid models also contributed to this success. Because of this, by the end of the year one in three Golfs was a hybrid. You can also see just how dynamic the back end of the year was in the fact that, of the approximately 312,000 Golf models delivered in Europe, around 179,000 hit the streets in the second half of the year alone.
At the end of the year, the Golf was by far and away at the top of registration statistics in Germany, followed by two other Volkswagen models, the Tiguan and the Passat. A car from competitors only made it as high as fourth place on the sales list.
The Golf was unanimously named the best car in the compact class by German trade press and won all 16 comparative tests in the Auto Motor und Sport, Auto Bild and Auto Zeitung magazines. The customers are of the same opinion, making the Golf the number 1 once again. “I would like to thank all of the customers who have given us their trust. But my gratitude also goes to our entire team that have done an excellent job during the difficult conditions of the coronavirus crisis,” said Brandstätter.
Research and Text by Joshua Chin
