A high-ranking VW executive says the Golf 8 could stick around until 2035, potentially soldiering on alongside a fully electric 9th-generation hatchback. Golf Vivo, anyone?
Worried that the likely fully electric Volkswagen Golf 9 will spell the end of petrol-powered derivatives such as the GTI? Well, if the latest comments from high-ranking VW executive Kai Grünitz are anything to go by, you needn’t fret since the current Golf 8 may well soldier on all the way until 2035.
Speaking to Top Gear’s Netherlands division, Grünitz – who is the VW brand’s board member responsible for technical development – suggested the current Golf had the potential to stick around until the middle of the next decade. The year 2035 is, of course, when the European Union wants all internal combustion-engined vehicles to have been removed from the continent’s new-car market.
If the Golf 8 were to soldier on – surely with a few more updates along the way in a bid to keep it fresh – until 2035, it would by that point have been in production for a staggering (by modern standards, anyway) 15 years. Still, the potentially prolonged-lifecycle model’s eventual age will likely depend on several factors, including seemingly ever-changing regulations in Europe.
Back in November 2022, Thomas Schäfer, CEO of the Volkswagen brand, effectively confirmed a Golf 9 was on the cards, saying the Wolfsburg-based automaker “would be crazy” to let “iconic brand names” such as Golf and GTI “die and slip away” as it pivoted towards electric cars. The following year (after the discovery of a revised version of its iconic GTI logo, complete with a lightning bolt), he suggested such a model would indeed be fully electric, with a likely reveal in 2028.
As a reminder, the Golf 8 debuted in October 2019, with the GTI following in February 2020 (though arriving in South Africa only in September 2021). The facelifted Golf GTI – or so-called Gold 8.5 GTI – was unwrapped in January 2024, before the likewise refreshed Golf R hit the global stage in June 2024. Neither, however, has yet to be officially confirmed for South Africa.
Considering growing uncertainty around the pace of the global automotive market’s shift to full electrification (and indeed the varied requirements of individual markets), VW’s wait-and-see approach with the Golf 8 is perhaps unsurprising. So, Golf Vivo, anyone?
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