I’m in mourning. Volkswagen is discontinuing the VW Golf.
I LOVED my Golf. It was the car of my free, single years – which went on for a worryingly long time. You could fit enough luggage in the boot to move house to Italy. Or just drive it for a night out. It never broke down – and that’s very important for a woman on her own.
It was brilliantly exemplified by the famous Paula Hamilton Golf advert, when a woman walking away down a South Kensington mews from what appeared to be a financially cushy, but probably controlling and abusive relationship, she threw away her pearls, furs, but kept the keys for her Golf. Kate Middleton drove one, as did Princess Di.
I have driven VWs ever since I walked away from a 75mph crash on a motorway into a massive immovable object, when I was 24, being driven in a polo (my first car). And that was before airbags. If you crash in a VW, you survive – intact.
Dudley Moore famously satirised the VW advertising slogan, which he said should be “Boxy but safe”.
I flirted briefly with the Ford Fiesta, and a Volvo sports car, but always returned to VW. Far more reliable.
And it wasn’t just for girls.
Lots of boys at university drove Golf GTis – it was the car of choice for the minted undergraduate in the 80s and 90s.
You can drive a Golf literally anywhere – you don’t need a 4×4 if you have a Golf. In Bosnia (which I covered for the Observer) the High Command of both the Bosnian Muslim and Serb armies all drove VW Golfs, for the simple reason that there was a VW Golf factory outside Sarajevo that changed hands several time during the early days of the war, and was thoroughly looted by both sides.
You’d see the cars, painted swirly camouflage greens, nudging their way to the most remote frontlines, fitted with mortars, or with someone poking their head out of the sunroof in a threatening and armed way.
In Sarajevo I sometimes drove an armoured Golf, previously the property of a (deceased) Sicilian anti-mafia campaigning judge. He’d been assassinated, but, as the Golf’s owner quickly pointed out, not while he was in the car…
But it always felt like the perfect woman’s car.
When I lived in Italy, I drove my Golf all the way to Rome, where I could park it outside my window in the Centro Storico – it never got a parking ticket – probably, to be fair, because of the amount of paperwork induced by UK number plates, but perhaps out of respect for German engineering. I drove it to Naples. Italian drivers would be astounded to see my left-hand drive car. They never drove into me.
My Golf died shortly after I got engaged. Or at least died for me, of old age. Perhaps it knew its days were numbered as it was too small for two of us. The sunroof was leaking, and the foot wells got mouldy. And it was going to cost too much to get it sorted out. I part exchanged it for about £300. It’s probably still going strong somewhere.
Now, in middle age, and married, I drive a VW Tiguan. It’s got more space. We have two people’s luggage.
If I ever got divorced, I’d buy a Golf, but now I can’t… I don’t know what car I would get… I’m lost.
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