Vehicles - VW Gol G1

Last crawled date: 1 year, 11 months ago

The Volkswagen Gol is a low cost subcompact car designed in Brazil and sold by German automaker Volkswagen since 1980. It is Volkswagen's entry-level car in the South American market, beneath the other superminis, the Fox and Polo. It has uninterruptedly been the best-selling car in Brazil since 1987, and since 1998 in Argentina. Gol sales in South America are also high; over 5 million Gols have been produced since 1980. The Gol was released in 1980 to replace the Brasilia, which was in turn a replacement to the Beetle in the Brazilian market. It was based on its own unique BX automobile platform derived from the existing VW/Audi B1 and B2 platforms. With a design specific to Latin America, the Gol featured the 1.3-liter air-cooled, H4 engine from the Beetle, but front-mounted. A 1.6-litre engine was added later. In the mid 1980s, this engine was replaced by 1.6 and 1.8-litre longitudinally-mounted water-cooled gasoline I4 engines from the Passat. A 1.6-litre Diesel engine was made only for export (Diesel engines are not allowed in cars in Brazil). The first generation (or 'G1') Gol had two mild facelifts in 1987 and 1991. The 1988 Gol GTi was the first Brazilian-built car to use fuel injection. The 2.0-liter I4 engine was the same used by the Santana.