Few family cars can match the Volkswagen Golf for longevity. Having made its debut in 1974, the evergreen German family hatch is now in its eighth generation, the current model having been launched in 2019. The original car was styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro and was the firm’s second ever front-wheel drive model with a water cooled engine, following on from the Passat a year earlier. It remains Volkswagen’s most popular car of all time, with more than 35 million built over nearly 50 years.