Citi Golf production stopped after 31 years
Yesterday (November 2) Volkswagen South Africa (VWSA) announced the official end of the Citi Golf era. For 31 years, the iconic car was built in the Uitenhage plant near Port Elizabeth.
Since 1978, workers in Uitenhage produced 517,384 VW Golfs, a car that seems to belong to South Africa like the traditional dried meat biltong. In 1984 the Citi range was introduced with slight changes to the original Golf 1. Still thousands of Citi Golfs are seen, not only in South Africa, but in the whole of Africa.
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- 1974: The first Golf 1 was produced in Wolfsburg, Germany
- (© picture-alliance/dpa)
“Today we are announcing the end of this legend called A1 or Citi Golf,” said David Powels, Managing Director of VWSA, at a press conference.
The Golf 1 was first produced in Germany in 1974, as a successor to the VW Beetle and became a huge success with nearly a million cars sold in the first two years of production.
The VW plant in Uitenhage was upgraded in recent years to make space for the production of new models.
“We are in the final phases of completely rebuilding and re-engineering our plant for new products to be introduced to SA in 2010,” Powels added.
At the moment, only the VW Polo is built in the Eastern Cape, thus Powel assured that the stoppage of the Citi Golf production will not result in any job losses.
Although the last Citi Golf came off the production line in August, VW will continue to sell the car until early 2010.
