The most important German car for 50 years: the Golf. Of course, the GTI only came in 1976.
Image: Manufacturer
Like every year: At the turn of the year we look back at the cars from 50 years ago. What came onto the market back then and what moved the world? The most important European innovations of 1974.
AAs the year 1974 dawns, it's not just the car world that is still under the influence of the oil crisis, which had more or less vanished into thin air just a year ago. After Sunday driving bans in November and December as well as rigid speed restrictions ordered by the federal government under Willy Brandt, weekend driving bans that had already been decided and were supposed to apply from January are no longer in place. There is always enough oil available, but an oil price shock still has to be absorbed, and car manufacturers are responding with models that have been created at short notice and are supposed to be particularly economical. The strict speed limits – 80 km/h on country roads, 100 km/h on motorways – will be lifted on March 15th.
At the Geneva Motor Show a few days later, the crisis is of course the dominant topic, the car buyer is unsettled, and a quote from the then Daimler-Benz board member Heinz Schmidt still fits exactly to the current situation in the (electric) car trade 50 years later: “The situation is far too serious for sandbox games based on reform ideology. The automobile industry is too crucial for economic development to be left to bureaucrats and ideologues to manipulate and endanger it.” The quote comes from the FAZ trade fair report on the Salon on March 20th. Six days earlier, the agreement on the establishment of “permanent representations” between the Federal Republic and the GDR had been signed in Bonn.
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