Volkswagen Golf Country – Cult Classic, Not Best Seller

Things used to be simpler. Back before social media was a thing – when we had to actually remember people’s birthdays – cars used to come in just a handful of guises. Depending on your predilection for a specific type of boot there were saloons and there were hatchbacks. There were also estates, if you wanted a little more room for any extra junk in said trunk, and aside from a few specialist types that was pretty much it. Nowadays there are all sorts of newfangled configurations to choose from. The likes of MPVs, SUVs and “crossovers” now sit side-by-side in showrooms with the more established categories and it can sometimes be difficult to tell the difference. But when you really think about it, is this actually a new concept? Vans have essentially always been MPVs (multi purpose vehicle) and Volkswagen had produced its first “crossover” way back in the early ’90s when it combined a proven and effective four-wheel drive system with a tough and rugged mechanical foundation. It then strapped all of this to its most successful hatchback platform and released the Golf Country – a whole thirteen years before the Touareg.

Unfortunately, much like the audience who watched dumbfounded as Marty McFly proceeded to bust out a particularly anachronistic guitar solo at the end of his rendition of Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode in Back to the Future, people just weren’t ready for the Golf Country upon its release in 1990. Based on the Mk2 Golf, the Country took that model’s proven mechanicals and combined them with a slick all-wheel drive system, a beefed up tubular subframe, skid pans and lifted suspension, all of which resulted in a car that could be used every day but was also more than capable on the rough stuff, if not an out and out off-roader.

Volkswagen were no strangers to 4X4s at this point, however. What with its World War Two-developed Type 166 Schwimmwagen amphibious vehicle the Germans knew how to create rugged, all terrain go anywhere, do anything transport so this wasn’t a toe in the water type of endeavour. The Country wasn’t its first production car to feature all-wheel drive either. The Golf Syncro had been around since ’86 with a 4X4 system developed in cooperation with Austrian firm Steyr-Daimler-Puch who knew a thing or two about making cars capable off of the beaten track and had successfully produced a similar system for the Italians in the form of the Fiat Panda 4X4.

But despite the public and press making all the right noises upon the car’s appearance at the 1989 Geneva Motor Show, noises that convinced VW to put the thing into production, the Golf Country was only built from ’90 to ’91 to the tune of 7,735 units. Why? Well, despite being a competent off-roader the Country wasn’t seen as being too hot at anything else, specifically a road car. VW had crossed a little too far over, it would turn out, and any competence the car had off of the tarmac was perceived as detrimental to its abilities on it.

Fitted with the standard Golf’s 97 horsepower, naturally aspirated 1.8-litre and sadly not the GTi’s more powerful lump that would have been very welcome to haul the car’s substantially increased bulk due to all of its more rugged accoutrements around (including front and rear bumper bars, rear spare tire-carrier and front off-road auxiliary lights), the Country was somewhat underpowered. The car also suffered from some pretty severe body roll when cornering. Who would have thought that raising it skyward by almost five inches would affect how the thing handles?

Having said that the Volkswagen Golf Country was a nifty little number. It wasn’t merely an experiment, a bitsa car thrown together with junk from the parts bin. It was the real deal, a bona fide mud plugger produced in conjunction with off-road industry experts. Sadly it was a case of right car, wrong time and had the planets aligned a little more favourable it would no doubt have very much been a trend setter. Today the Golf Country represents an incredibly rare slice of classic VW history who’s legacy lives on in modern mid-size luxury crossover SUVs. Or whatever it is you’re supposed to call them. As we touched on, the market wasn’t quite ready for a car that a lot of people dismissed under the false impression that it was more akin to a custom, modified dune buggy than an actual, professionally developed production car.

We can’t stop here, this is Golf Country and as rare as they may be we are Car & Classic, the world’s largest classic marketplace and as such, at the time of writing, we actually have a VW Golf Country duo for sale via our classified ads, one of which is this particularly lovely chrome edition, of which less than 600 were ever made, making it an even more exclusive proposition. So if you’re hankering after a charming, utterly unique and capably classic SUV that looks way better than anything on the market today then this is the car for you. With modern SUVs selling in their millions it’s a wildly popular market but that doesn’t mean you can’t still dance to your own tune if you want to scratch that particular itch and it’s certainly possible to do it with just a little more character, a little more style, a little more… Country.