There’s an old quote about the only constant in life being change, and the car industry is certainly changing. The move to electrification and a proliferation of new brands and models makes it hard to keep up, but at the same time there are some things that have stayed, well, the same. That’s certainly true of the iconic nameplates we’ve gathered together here, all of them still with us after many decades. So what better way to celebrate them, than to take a look back at where they began.
VOLKSWAGEN GOLF
For many buyers wanting something that feels a cut above the mainstream, only a Golf will do. Today we’ve reached the Mk8.5, but we’re heading back a full 50 years to the very first generation that rolled out of the Wolfsburg factory in March 1974. Replacing the legendary Beetle was no easy task, but Giorgetto Giugiaro penned a crisply-styled hatchback that, with its thoroughly modern front-wheel drive layout, soon had other manufacturers scrabbling to catch up. It made family cars from the likes of Vauxhall and Ford look old-hat by comparison, and the Golf arguably set the template for the rivals that followed.
It might not have provided much in the way of excitement, but it was nice to drive and solidly constructed, and those attributes soon had buyers flocking to VW showrooms. In any case, a rather more entertaining version was on its way in the shape of the GTI. It would have been easy for VW to sit back and just watch the sales racking up, but that wasn’t really the done thing, so the Mk1 Golf saw numerous developments over the years, including the addition of diesel engines as
