VW to close the factory that made the Mk2 Golf Rallye? Did you even know that factory wasn’t in Germany?

It’s ...

It’s true.. the famous FIA qualifying factory produced widebody supercharged all-wheel-drive second generation Golfs, dubbed the Golf Rallye and limited to only around 5,000ish produced wasn’t made in Germany.. It was at the Audi / VW / one time Studebaker factory in Brussels, Belgium. And although it’s in its 75th year of making VW Group cars, all is not well.


The factory has produced a LOT of different cars since 1949 – Porsche 356, Beetles, Golf 1, Golf 2, Audi A3, A1, our personal lust worthy Audi S1… and most recently various Audi e-Tron. And there in lies the problem.

The factory may have made 5,000 Golf Rallye specials over a period of a few years, but even with all the expansion and moderisation and increase capacity, they’ve still got the sell all the cars they’re making… and they’re not really selling very well.

Reports put the plant at a 120,000-vehicle production capacity, but so far in 2024 cars produced up to about now-ish in October may be as low as around 24,000.. which is almost exactly 20%, which leaves 80% underutlised and not generating monies.. With only the E-Tron being built there – possibly the Q8 only at the moment?- that number is a long way from being reached, and doesn’t seem like hope and help is on the horizion… In 2022, the factory that production number was 47,900 units, and the number dropped to 37,400 last year. That’s a sadly clear tragectory if you imagine a VW accountant looking at a graph, with a red line heading downhill to the right pretty steeply.

Of course the unions and the workers, and the suppliers, and heck, everyone involved are all hoping this won’t come to fruition, but reports of happy solutions seem pretty low on the ground. Even mentions of other manufacturer buyers don’t seem to be getting very solid.

We’ve never visited the halls that produced our beloved Golf Rallye (both Editor Elliott, and myself, own one each currently..), but it just felt nice that the factory was sitting there, still running and putting cars on the road, and food on the employees tables. Over the years they’ve produced well over 7,000,000 Volkswagen Group cars in fact.. So, while we’re hoping for some happy shiny news, we’re not holding out much hope right now based on the many news reports.