Here we have a pretty Volkswagen Citi Golf, seen in south-central Beijing on new years eve January 22, 2012. The car was in a reasonable shape for its years and painted in a dark red shade that matched nicely with the red stars in the fence on the left.
The Volkswagen Citi Golf was a China-only creation. It was based on the first-generation Seat Cordoba (1993-2002). It was made in China from 1995 until 2001 by the FAW-Volkswagen joint venture.
The Citi Golf had a factory standard spoiler on the boot lid. Sadly, all the original badges are gone. The Golf badge on the right is not original (this is how it should be).
The Chinese name of the City Golf is unusually long: 都市 高尔夫. The first part 都市(Dushi) means city. The English name was spelled as ‘Citi’ instead of ‘City’, a marketing thing. The second part 高尔夫(Gao’erfu) is the Chinese name for Golf. This name, a phonetic translation, is used for the China-made Golf until today.
The base model was powered by a 1.4-liter petrol engine with 59 hp and 107 Nm, good for a claimed top speed of 130 km/h. The price started at around 240.000 yuan in 1995. There was also a more upmarket GLX model with a 1.6 under the bonnet, but those are super rare in comparison.
The Citi Golf is rare in any way. Up until 2005 or so you could still see regularly meet them in Beijing. But afterward, they started to disappear very quickly. Build quality was so-so and stricter emission regulations send many to the scrapyard or outlying provinces.
As it was new years eve, with the Year of the Dragon set to start at 00:00 that very night, there was a lot of dragon-themed advertising. This one was on a nearby billboard, advertising a special dragon edition of 美汁源 (Měizhīyuán, Minute Maid), a juice brand under the Coca-Cola company.
That night: fireworks!
the car is looking very nice but it seens to go more than 130km