By George Guimarães | Translated by Jorge Meditsch
The VW Gol showed in October that is announced production end, after 42 years, is much near, a matter of a few weeks, although the manufacturer had not yet defined the date officially. The hat had only 3.1 thousand units sold last month and occupied the humble 18th position among the best-selling passenger cars.
It is the fourth worst monthly result in 2022, only better than the numbers from February through April, when the production at the plant of Taubaté, SP, was impaired and even suspended due mainly to the lack of components. Nonetheless, in the three following months, the Gol took the market lead again. It went close to 12 thousand units a month in July and August, falling to 5.8 thousand in September.
This sales “boom” in the middle of the year did not signalize Volkswagen had changed its plan for the model launched in 1980 as a candidate to replace the legendary Beetle, known in Brazil as “Fusca”. It just showed that the lack of offer in the previous semester was supplied by a larger production to meet the repressed orders, especially from fleet owners, since a long time responsible for most purchases of the hatch.
Anyway, the Gol will complete its last year of life with a very relevant commercial performance. From January through October, it had 56.1 thousand units registered, was the fifth best-selling passenger car and, for just a few hundred units, did not figure ahead of the Fiat Mobi, which sold almost 56.8 thousand units.
Independently of how many units will be in the last production batches, which will include the farewell series Last Edition, as happened with the Kombi, the hatch has already granted a standout place in the Brazilian automotive industry history.
In little more than four decades, about 8.6 million units of the Gol left Volkswagen’s assembly lines toward the internal market and exportation, considering its three generations and diverse remodelings. The Gol led sales in Brazil for 27 consecutive years, from 1987 through 2014.
The end of the Gol opens space to the Polo Track, a simplified version of the Polo that will debut in the market at the beginning of 2023. It will occupy the space of the predecessor and its variant, the Voyage sedan, in the Taubaté plant, which is receiving improvements in equipment and processes to adopt the MQB platform.
Photo: Volkswagen
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