The South African Beetle on its way out
If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you’ll have noticed that I’m no great fan of the Volkswagen Citi Golf. Let me explain. The Citi Golf is a Golf 1, making the model more than thirty years old. It’s indestructible, robust and well-built. What else would you expect from a German car?
But, it’s really old. Modifications and additions cannot a safer carriage make. There’s little to do about comfort, seating position and those tiny side mirrors. Well-loved, perhaps, but ultimately a cash cow for Volkswagen who still assemble the Citi using 65% or more components from the first generation Golf. My argument is thus: with 65% of components still being manufactured using 30 year old machinery, the Citi Golf should have become the real people’s car: super cheap and absolutely affordable. Instead, prices climbed as is to be expected and a new Citi Golf is not even cheaper than the cheapest, more modern car on the market. Certainly no bargain, the entry-level TenaCiti (how many more names can we come up with that include Citi) costs a whopping ZAR 82,000.
As a simple counter example, the Hyundai Atos Prime 1.1 can be bought for under ZAR 80,000. Maybe not an entirely fair apples to apples comparison, but at least that’s a modern car. Sure, it may not last and may have other issues, but is built with modern safety design principles in mind. The Citi has been showing its age for a long, long time. 2010, and it’s over.
Next year, Volkswagen will be ending production and selling the last of the Citi Golf units it has standing around. Amusingly, VW has no model in its lineup that can take the Citi‘s place, so the competition is certain to pounce on that opportunity. A lesson to be learned then, for companies milking the consumer with an outmoded piece of technology only to find they forgot to design something that could take its place when the product’s shelf life extended beyond the reasonable.
The South African Beetle will be no more: fans of the Citi may want to acquire a piece of South African motoring history for themselves, before it’s all over.
via 
Stern
