As expected, Volkswagen Group of America has ended production of the Golf at the automaker’s plant in Puebla, Mexico, which supplied U.S. dealers, as the base-model hatchback is wound down in the U.S.
A new eighth-generation Golf R and Golf GTI, manufactured in Germany, will be imported into the U.S. for the 2022 model year as the Puebla plant transitions to new products, including the Taos subcompact crossover, VW of America said today.
Since the vehicle first went on sale in the U.S. in 1974 as the VW Rabbit, the German brand has sold nearly 2.5 million Golf hatchbacks in the states, including the latest generation, which debuted for the 2015 model year. It switched to the Golf nameplate, used elsewhere globally, in 1985, returned as a Rabbit from 2006 to 2009, and finally stayed with the Golf name from 2010 onward.
U.S. sales of the base-model Golf actually rose 7.4 percent in 2020 to 6,063 vehicles. But as a small hatchback, the Golf fought an uphill battle for consumer hearts in recent years as U.S. consumers moved toward larger crossovers. For comparison, in 2015, VW sold 19,257 base-model Golfs in the U.S. — nearly the same amount, 19,484, that it sold for all vehicles bearing the Golf name in 2020.
