OUR CHAMPION IS A JACKRABBIT OF ALL TRADES

摘要

It might be hard to believe, but in a four-decade lifespan, Volkswagen's Golf has only run away with our Golden Calipers once before, in 1985. Also interesting is the fact that the GTI that won our Car of the Year award 30 years ago was deemed our "domestic" COTY at a time when we still categorized imported cars into their own award. The domestic tag was because the 1985 GTI was constructed at Volkswagen's now-defunct Pennsylvania plant, which was shuttered three years later. A lot has changed in the intervening years. Volkswagen is once again producing cars in the U.S., and the Volkswagen Golf, including the GTI, is once again our Car of the Year. For 2015, the Golf was a near-unanimous choice among our judges by virtue of its strong performance in each of our six Car of the Year criteria.