LAST WEEK VOLKSWAGEN unveiled the updated two and four-door Golf as well as the Golf GTI, Golf GTE and Golf Variant.

The Golf has been around for more than four decades and is the most successful model in Volkswagen’s history. So, to celebrate this, we’ve taken a look at the records the Golf has set.

The Golf debuted in Europe in 1974 and in America in 1975 (although it was called the Rabbit over there). Here are the numbers:

• Just 730 days after its debut, the millionth unit of the first Golf was delivered.

• By 1988 over ten million Golfs had been produced.

• In 2002, with 21,517,415 units sold, the Volkswagen Golf overtook the Beetle to become the world’s biggest-selling car ever.

• In 2003, one Golf Mk1 driver broke through one million kilometres on the clock.

• The most expensive Golf (a Mk IV) was auctioned in 2005 for €188,938. Why? Its first owner was Pope Benedict XVI.

• In 2007 at the GTI meet at Wörthersee the most powerful Golf ever was presented: the GTI W12-650. It featured a bespoke mid-mounted W12 engine linked to a pair of turbochargers, which together produced a jaw-dropping 650hp – enough to rival some trucks.

Newspress Newspress

• By the end of last year, 32,590,025 Golfs had been sold. This means that on average, over the last 42 years someone, somewhere in the world, decided to buy a new Golf every 40 seconds.

• This works out at 2,120 Golfs being produced and sold every day for four decades.

• In 2012 the German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s first Golf (a Mk II) fetched €10,156 at auction.

Volkswagen Media Volkswagen Media

• In Germany the car is such a big deal that ‘Generation X’ is known as ‘Generation Golf’.

• Today the Golf is manufactured in five factories in four countries - Brazil, China, Germany and Mexico – and is exported to 155 countries.

READ: Ford wants to take the stress out of parking with the push of a button >

READ: Gadget preview: 12V Portable Stove to keep you well fed on the road >