Views on the VW Golf Country


I have never ridden in, or even seen, a VW Golf Country first hand. Based on the little that I have actually seen & heard about them, I find them very interesting. I feel that one of these would be a great car, that would really fit my personality & lifestyle. Because of this, the Golf Country has become one of my dream cars.

I do know enough, to know that I want to know more. If you have any pictures, information or opinions of these cars please send them to me at: PhilipM3@P3Racing.net Any information that you send will be greatly appreciated.

Many of the pictures on these pages came from Cullen K. Holm. I'm getting lazy, & stopped putting his name with all of the pictures that I have gotten from him, so if you see a picture without a name listed under it, there is a decent chance that I got it from him. Thank you Cullen.

If you like Golf Countries, joing the Golf Country Mailing List.

Below I have included information that a few people who have visited this site have sent me.


Holger Hanna 101.160551@germanynet.de wrote:
"It drives like a normal Golf, but you have a much better look-around because of its high position (30 centimeters higher as a normal Golf). The 4WD is very good on dirty roads and snow, but you must brake on snow very carefully, because there is no ABS !

You see this car very seldom in germany and if there is one for sale, it will cost about 14.000 Deutsche Mark. People on the street have two opinions : they dislike it ("What is that for an ugly thing ? Don't you have money enough for a real offroad-car ?") or they like it ("Is it for sale ?")."


Nicolas Derumeaux nicolasd@9bit.qc.ca wrote:
"Just to tell you that the Golf Country is one of the most beautiful off-road fun cars. plus they are very rare. I had twice the chance to drive it. The 2 photo's (european car 1998 [Numbers 10 & 11 here] ) are from the VW Golf Country prototype. Did you know that their are 2 series? You can see the difference at the swing out spare tire. If you can not close it by key, than it is the first serie, if you can close it by key, the second serie. Their is also a limited serie : body color black, polished front bar and rear steps, leather interior and a big skyroof. I just don't know if it is original from VW or from one German Tuner?"


Geir Elverum rindstad.elverum@c2i.net wrote:
"Hello! I am the happy owner of a Golf Country from 1990. I have had it for almost 3 years, and i like it a lot. The Golf Country was produced in 4000 units. My problem here in Norway is that it is very difficult to find parts,because VW Norway never took this car into norway. So, if anyone read this and can help me find the price for 4 shock absorbers to this car in for example Germany, i would be greatful. I dont have a scanner so i can't send you any photos, but if you mail me your post adress, i can send you one. I have searched the net for a long time to find info on the Country but with no luck, so it is nice to see that someone has made a place on the net for Country enthusiasts.Geir Elverum ,Målselv , Norway."

Geir Elverum Later Added:
"What i can tell you is that my car has an 1,8 litres engine with 98 HP.I belive they all was made with this engine. It drives very nice, but it is a short car, so it is "jumpy" on bad roads and in the terrain,this thanks to a very hard suspension."


Christian van Dommelen dj-sunburst@gmx.de wrote:
(February 19, 2000)
"my name is chris and since feb 1997 i am an very proud owner of one of the most extraordinary vw cars ever built.

a vw golf country in the special pink floyd edition, what means :
the car is black
the tires are 15 inch, 205mm on chrome steel
light brown leather seats with seat warming in the front
the roof that is somewhat convertible like
chrome steel bullbar
chrome steel step on the side and to the left and right of the reserve wheel

i have got one with a benzine engine no diesel (most of all countries ever sold are diesel.

i bought it with 82000 km and now it has driven about 115000 km."


Cullen K. Holm wrote:
(February 14, 2001)
"Well I'm the Golf Country fanatic who scans the net for Country pics, and scan pictures from all kinds of material I can get on the car.

I have a 1991 Black Golf Country with a 2.0 Oettinger engine (I bought it like that), the previous one I had was a stock 1.8 98hp blue Country Golf.

I have a 1.9TDI engine that I want to drop into the car. Changes I have done so far are:
Rallye Golf headlights with true HID (Xenon) conversion
replaced the fog lights with Hella Comet 200FF
And the aux highbeams with Hella Rallye 1000 FF
I also replaced the side turnsignals with In.Pro clear/chrome ones
And like that wasn't enough I installed US spec Hella 1/2 smoked taillights.
and clear front turnsignals (there aren't any more lights to swap on this car :-)

Anyhow I have only tried to make the Country Golf look they way it could have when it came from the factory, I mean I am trying to keep a factory look (though it's not stock).

Now I wanted to comment a bit on what Nicolas Derumeaux said.

Yes he is correct about the fact that there was two different versions (actully three will get to that) of the Country

Now the "limited series" was called the Chrome Golf Country and was sold about 1500, they were extremely expensive

The picture you can see to the left "Project: VW Golf Country" also includes a comment on this car. This info page btw is directly sent to me from Steyr Puch Daimler who developed this car together with VW.

Now this brings us to the comment made by Geir Elverum about the 4000 units being produced, I was also under the impression that some 4-5000 were made, and there were different rumors about this so I asked Steyr Puch's public relations several times until Mr. Herfried Teschl answered me (will send that mail to Philip seperately). In the info sent to me they gave a number of 7 735 units that were made.

Regarding the spare parts I can help out if needed, I can order most parts and even get a little discount (the shocks are about 650 DM/ shock last I purchased a year ago).

Best Regards,
Cullen K. Holm"

Cullen K. Holm Later Added:
(February 14, 2001)
"Oh yes please include in my comment that the picture called Golf Montana IS the prototype shown in Geneve in 1988."

Cullen K. Holm Later Added:
(February 14, 2001)
"And here is the mail I got from Stey-Puch Daimler."

"Dear Mr. Cullen,

first of all: Sorry for the late answer!

The VW Golf Country Syncro has been produced by Steyr-Daimler-Puch Fahrzeugtechnik in Graz from 1990 to 1991. The total number of produced units was 7,735 including the Chrome-Version (no particular details of the produced units of the Chrome-Version).

Please find attached a chart (#2 on left) summarizing all engineering and production activities of our company concerning the Golf Country.

Kind regards,

Herfried Teschl
Head of PR department""


Xavier Canal yukonland@eresmas.com wrote:
(March 02, 2001)
"Hi!
I'm Xavier Canal, and as I promised I have sent you some pictures of my VW Golf Country. We bought the car one year ago, in February 2000, and it was in almost perfect condition (only a little of rossion)with 80.000 km. Only the tyres must have been changed, because they are of the 195/55 R15 size, so we put it the standard 195/60 R15. It has the 1.800 engine with 98HP that runs perfect. It's a funny car to drive, overcoat in curved roads. I know that the car is a 1990 serie thanks to the indications of Nicolas Derumeaux about the swing out spare tyre lock. The car was not fitted with any special accessory but the moonroof, keyless entry with alarm and a 6-CD charger, the last, I think, added later to the car.
Thanks again for making such a great web site."

Xavier Canal, Barcelona SPAIN."

Xavier Canal Later Added:
(February 14, 2001)
"Also We'd like to ask you if you know of someone who knows where to find the VW Golf Country stickers or some place where we can find them. The ones from our car, as you can see, are missing (as you can see in the pictures), and we'd like to have them. Their colour must have been the green, because the rear tyre cover has the words in that colour."


Chris Hogg chrisghogg@supanet.com wrote:
(April 06, 2001)
"Like your page! I own the Montana Green Golf Country with the RHD conversion and TDI engine. I love it. Just had the sub frame shot blasted and powder coated in black."

Chris."


Heike und Dietrich Knuf HeikeundDietrich@t-online.de wrote:
(November 20, 2002)
"Hello Philip,
I discovered your homepage some days ago and must say it is very good! Especially the golf country pages are something I have searched for a long time! I own such a car since april. It is my fifth golf but definately the one I like most. It is more than true what Holger Hanna says in his email quoted on your pages: Some people don´t like it (usually drivers of huge Toyota or Nissan 4WD´s) but much more often it makes a much bigger show than these heavy vehicles!
On the second day I ownwed my country a big Truck stopped beside me at a red signal. The driver climbed all through his cabin , opened the window and we had a nice conversation about the best engine, fitting of a trailer hook and so on while the lights were green since a long time...he also owned two golf countries as he told me. Other people asked me "can it also swim" or or how I fitted all these tuning parts.
Are you from the USA? Nice to see that there is worldwide enthusiasm for vw cars! In Germany there is a well established scene for aircooled vw´s (do you know www.bugnet.de ?) but the more recent models are just begun to be discovered by collectors...maybe they are much too frequent on the roads (or are believed to be, since the first watercooled vw, the K70, is extremely rare and even millionsellers as the Audi 50 / Polo 1 are no longer seen).
Back to my country: It really is a great car for my everyday needs. With its firm suspension, stabilizers and precise power steering it is very pleasant on good roads while the high body and the 4WD gives a lot of reserve for unsealed terrain which I have to drive from time to time (since I am a farmer). Also towing a trailer is no problem. Unfortunately the fuel consumption is higher than with a regular golf (10.5 ltr/100 km instead of 7.5-8). Fitting a TDI engine might solve the problem, but is not as easy as it sounds since the gears need modification, too. I will collect some info about it via the mailing list linked on your page...

Many greetings from germany, Dietrich


Michael Lykopoulos lykopoulos@3c-nederland.nl wrote:
(May 03, 2003)
Dear Phillip,

By accident my wife hit your site (in search of any information about the gearbox). I've joined now the vw country club and there you'll find much more in the near future about my country.

I've own now my country since november 1996. It's original from april 1993 and for almost two years it was a showroom car at Pon (the VAG Importer in Holland). I've bought the car with only 44.800 km's on the counter and at this moment I've driven aprox 210.000 km's (ref counter: 255.033 original km). At this verry moment the car is broke down (hole in the gearbox hosing) at the VAG dealer in Haarlem (the Netherlands or Holland).

In Holland the car was sold from 1889 throu 1993 and only 400 of them where sold. At this moment aprox 48 of them are stil driving around. From this total of 48, are at this moment 6 cars in sale at various dealers around Holland (so if you finanly want one, prices betwee € 2.880,= and € 6.900,=). Here in Haarlem there are just two driving around (in in blue and one in green).

My experiance with the Country is that you'll drive very exclusief car, what's realy seen on the roads in Europe. In holliday times you will encounter this (everybody looks arround and ask you if this orginal etc. etc.)

My version of the Country is the original car with the next acc:

In 1998 I had a "discussion" with a tram in Amsterdam and even the tram was much bigger the Country still surviced the crash with no any harm done. Since then we've called the Country "the tank" (see the pictures).

I've send you also same others pictures and as you can see I've used the car daily since nov 1996 till now.

Greetings Michael Lykopoulos
(a happy Country owner)