{"id":22137,"date":"2019-02-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.secret-classics.com\/40-years-of-volkswagen-golf-cabriolet\/"},"modified":"2020-10-05T14:22:08","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T14:22:08","slug":"40-years-of-volkswagen-golf-cabriolet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.secret-classics.com\/en\/40-years-of-volkswagen-golf-cabriolet\/","title":{"rendered":"40 Years of Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The 1960s and 70s were marked by a new safety thinking after several fatal accidents with open convertibles. While manufacturers such as Chevrolet and Porsche swung from fully open cars to Targa models with removable roof panels above the passengers, other brands considered the complete discontinuation of these model variants. Among them was for short time also Volkswagen. At that time they had a real popular car in their portfolio with the Beetle Cabriolet, but since the new Golf debuted in 1974 it was obvious that its production time would end soon. Since there were no official efforts from VW to develop a successor, another team tried to do so.

Karmann in Osnabr\u00fcck\/Germany has been manufacturing the Beetle Cabriolet since 1949 and now developed an open version of the Golf, which was presented in 1976 to the responsible persons of the Volkswagen board in Wolfsburg. This prototype received a new design for the smaller rear side windows and a soft top hidden under a special tarp. The back seats offered slightly less legroom compared to the normal two-door Golf and came without headrests. However, the new sideline with small ascending kink and the complete open roof didn’t meet the expectations of the Volkswagen Design team. Prof. Dr. Ulrich Seiffert, then Head of Vehicle Safety at Volkswagen, decreed: “Not without a rollbar!” The team at Karmann immediately developed a welded rollbar at the B-pillars, which not only improved the rollover protection and was used as a pivot point for the front safety belts, but also served as an additional support for the fabric top. In addition, it was the reason for two German nicknames of the car: ‘Erdbeerk\u00f6rbchen’ (strawberry punnet) and ‘Henkelmann’ (mess kit).<\/p>\n\n\n

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