Volkswagen Jetta (A1)

The Volkswagen Jetta A1 is the first generation of the Jetta compact car. Volkswagen saw that the Golf had succeeded in North America but that its hatchback body lacked appeal for buyers who preferred a traditional three-box car, so its stylists essentially grafted a new trunk onto the tail of the Golf to make a larger Jetta saloon, reversing the process that truncated the Hornet into the AMC Gremlin. The Jetta became the best-selling European car in the United States, Canada and Mexico, and sales were slower but strong enough in Europe to justify later generations. It was introduced at the 1979 Frankfurt Auto Show and production began in August 1979 at the Wolfsburg plant. In Mexico it was known as the Atlantic. It came as a two-door and a four-door sedan, penned at Italdesign by Giorgetto Giugiaro.