GOLFOPOLIS

Wolfsburg, home to Volkswagen and the Golf, is the biggest car factory in the world. We join design boss Andreas Mindt for an exclusive tour around the city built on the car that changed the world

- Jake Groves

THERE IS A RHYTHMIC POUNDING rumble that is gently but persistently shaking the ground around me. It starts not long after I enter the biggest factory building I have ever been in and it is getting louder as I venture further in. It is ominous, bassy, and regular like an amplified yet distant heartbeat—and gives the impression that I am exploring a place that is organic rather than industrial.

I have been given exclusive access to Volkswagen’s vast Wolfsburg facility as it celebrates the Golf's 50th anniversary. Wolfsburg is not just Volkswagen's headquarters but their constant, their keystone, and a near-indestructible core for a brand that has had to ride out considerable turbulence—plenty of it its own doing—over recent years. Dieselgate-influenced strategies to electrify quickly have meant a lukewarm start for its ID range of cars and dwindling electric vehicle (EV) production; it has been beset in China by home-grown car-makers toppling its number one sales position; management reshuffles have meant uncertainty in the brand’s future direction, and CEO Thomas Schäfer reportedly told senior management ‘the roof is on fire’ last summer. And yet the Wolfsburg facility remains, endures, thrives even.