Volkswagen Golf 3 (1991). These prototypes that have never seen the light of day!

To take over from the Golf 2, in the background, the Golf 3, sketched here in 1986, was initially supposed to sport a grille without a grille like that of the Passat type B3 of 1988.

With the third generation launched thirty years ago, the Volkswagen Golf has taken it to the next level. A record production rate, and undisputed leadership on the European market. And yet, the compact star could have had a completely different face.

The third generation Volkswagen Golf turns 30 in 2021. This is an opportunity to look back on the genesis of the star compact sedan on the European market. In 1992, during its first full year of production, the Golf Mk3 was assembled at the rate of 4,500 units per day, or three Golfs rolled off the assembly line every minute! However, this third version could have had a completely different face.

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This model of the A3 project (the future Golf 3) still evokes a lot, on its profile, the second generation Golf.

In the summer of 1986, in Volkswagen’s styling office, the internal competition was in full swing. Several proposals are in competition for the coded project “A3“. The one which will then give birth to the third opus of the Golf.

A Golf without grille

On this life-size clay model of the future Volkswagen Golf 3, the very thin grille is still part of it.

Among the different avenues explored, note the one without a grille in order to harmonize the muzzle of the compact sedan of the range with that of its big sister, the Passat type B3 family sedan. This is the third generation of the Passat (photo below) which was marketed from 1988 to 1993 and whose plastic has not left us with a fantastic memory.

Indeed, its face was quite bland and above all a break with the black horizontal grids to which the Wolfsburg brand had accustomed us since … the original Golf. But in the context of the time, this reflected a certain modernity and a quest for aerodynamics. Even if the identity of the brand was significantly diluted, which is why Volkswagen has not persisted in this direction. Finally, in hindsight, the production Volkswagen Golf 3 played on a clever in-between consisting of a refined black grille highlighting its pretty almond eyes. Moreover, the focus of his gaze has also gone through several stages with bevelled ends, or even separate circular projectors. But it was a little too early for this idea which will not be lost because it will be taken up on the next generation, in 1997. Like what, for the Golf, nothing is lost, everything is transformed.

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