It’s one of the world’s most popular small cars, and it rescued the company after the Beetle faded, but what’s the meaning behind the Volkswagen Golf?
The Volkswagen Golf is named after the Golfstrom, the German name of the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is a ocean current that brings warmer water and air from the Gulf of Mexico up along the United States’ east coast, across the Atlantic Ocean, and to the western coast of Europe.
Scientific consensus is that the Gulf Stream makes Europe warmer than it would otherwise be.
Volkswagen isn’t unaware that golf is also the name of a ball sport, in both English and German. With this in mind, the company has famously fitted manual editions of the Golf GTI hatchback with golf ball-style gear knobs, and tartan pattern seats.
It also named the smaller Polo hatchback because it wanted to stick to the theme of high wealth, almost aristocratic, sports.
