Gelsenkirchen, about 50 Kilometers northeast of Düsseldorf, on a mild autumn day: you turn the corner and it is suddenly as if you are back in 1990. Golf II ‘Function’ and Golf II ‘Madison’ are parked neatly behind one another. The first is a five-door model, the second a three-door model – and in this particular car is the child seat, cuddly toys and very well-known frog figure, which appears to look out of the rear right side window as a sticker.
The Golf family
Few other cars are so deeply rooted in the lives of their drivers as the Golf. In the series entitled ‘It’s my Life’, we present people who drive the Golf – and live for it. In part two, Anna Webelsiep and Christoph Dalchau talk about how their Golf II ‘Madison’ has become part of the family.
‘That’s Kermit!’ says Anna Webelsiep with a smile as she presents her Golf II ‘Madison’, while her husband Christoph Dalchau lifts their daughter Mathilda from his Function. ‘Time to swap cars, Mathilda – today we are travelling in mummy’s Kermit, not in daddy’s Oscar!’ Mathilda squeaks with delight: the TV puppet tradition continues into the next-generation Golf.
335,000 kilometres clocked up on everyday trips
The fact that these young people around the age of 30 are driving cars that are pretty much as old as they are is anything but a given. It must be a pastime, merely for pleasure, but it isn’t: ‘We have been driving both of our Golf cars for years on an everyday basis without compromise,’ says Anna with a hint of astonishment.
It goes without saying: the Golf II, the indestructible model, on the road since 1983 and still there to this day. When Anna bought her ‘Kermit’ in 2008, the 1.3-litre 55 horsepower Golf had 175,000 kilometres on the clock. Today, believe it or not, it has done 335,000!
That is a third of a million, yet Anna and Christoph, who met and fell in love while completing their voluntary social year, find it completely normal. ‘If you pay constant attention, listen to your Golf and swiftly rectify little faults, then it’s not exactly magic,’ says Christoph, who works as a lathe operator and milling cutter and ‘heals’ the family Golf cars together with nurse Anna.
‘Reliable, straightforward and everything fits inside’
Talking of which, when the young couple is asked which word best describes their Golf, they reply: ‘family. ‘Both Golf cars really have become part of the family over the years. They are reliable and straightforward and everything fits inside, from the shopping to the luggage and the buggy – and they are now real classics,’ says a delighted Anna.
It must be love: this Golf story will go on for a long time
Together with Christoph she has been a member of the ‘1. Original Golf I Community of Interest’, ever since she once bought a Golf I Cabrio. ‘But the Cabriolet doesn’t get used in winter, which is why both Golf II models soon became the everyday runabouts in our lives,’ say Anna and Christoph, revealing their automotive history.
A Golf from the cradle
Meanwhile, Mathilda is still in action: she is laughing and running around ‘her’ Kermit, stroking and patting it on the wing. Having enjoyed her trip, she springs out of the child seat into the front of the car once it comes to a stop and sits behind the steering wheel: ‘No car. Drive Golf!’ The car that she has more or less known since the day she was born. ‘That was the best experience with the Golf to date,’ smiles Anna, ‘when we picked up Mathilda from the hospital in it.’
And if things stay the same with Mathilda, Kermit and Oscar, then it seems the Golf tradition is set to continue.
