GTI Fan Fest 2024: Wolfsburg celebrates 50 years of the VW Golf

The Golf comes home and 15,000 follow it. Pictures, impressions and emotions from the successor to the Wörthersee meeting

Photo by: Motor1.com

By: Benja Hiller

Jul 30, 2024 at 6:48am ET

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"Icons coming home" was the motto of the first GTI Fan Fest at the Volkswagen Arena in Wolfsburg. The GTI meeting took place on Lake Wörthersee in Austria for over 40 years until the municipality of Wörth am See, after a Corona pause, said "no" to the steadily growing size: "Increasing criticism and decreasing acceptance" among local residents led to the cancellation.

The local authority was decided and Volkswagen didn't take long to conclude the event. For Thomas Schäfer, CEO of Volkswagen, it was an immediate opportunity to finally bring the Golf back to the Autostadt as a true Wolfsburg product. The few more cars in Wolfsburg don't make the tyre rubber stick any harder for a weekend. Well, at least not too much. So where, if not in the Autostadt, would a 50th birthday celebration be more appropriate?

Gallery: GTI Fan Fest 2024

Source: Motor1.com

Lord Mayor of Wolfsburg, Dennis Weilmann, was immediately on board, as he proudly explained at the official opening of the GTI Fan Fest 2024. So the Golf is back home - finally, by all accounts. At home where it was born. Three days of birthday celebrations from 26 to 28 July 2024 could begin.

And the GTIs? They came: From 1 Series to 8 Series, from original with patina to performance-optimised to tinkerers, from the Dortmund performance plant to the painstakingly saved-up collector's item.

While the community car parks only slowly filled up towards Saturday afternoon, the festival site was a hive of activity on all three days with performance models, curiosities such as the See-Golf, design studies such as the GTI Roadster and racing cars around the stadium.

Not only were labour-intensively modified vehicles presented to the fans on the stage, but stories were also told, such as that of a Swede who has been driving his original Mk1 GTI through Europe for 40 years. Longer than he has been with his wife, which is "only" 30 years.

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GTI Fan Fest 2024

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Racing drivers spoke of over 5,000 laps on the Nordschleife, marketing teams presented reasons for buying a new Golf R, while Volkswagen drivers, some more and some less interested, or those who wanted to become one, nibbled on a snack from the food trucks set up and frenetically celebrated every "Vrooom Vrooom".

The aim was not to replace the Wörthersee meeting, which at peak times attracted over 200,000 visitors, but to create a place where the whole family could celebrate Golf and its brothers and sisters in style, including a wide range of activities and shopping opportunities. And the Golf? It has friends all over the world, as not only the international number plates on the car parks suggested, but also invited representatives from VW branches such as Japan and South Africa.

The result was a civilised party with an informal atmosphere, which was not only praised by the international media, but also by most of the community. However, there were limitations and suggestions for improvement, as I was able to find out during a few chats.

GTI Fan Fest 2024

For example, some felt that the events in the car parks were somewhat detached from the organised part of the festival. They wished for a visible demarcation of the entire area and a possible mixing of the festival activities and the car park. Some people were not aware that there were a number of cars or another car park outside the festival because various entrances and exits were not used or the situation was simply confusing. There was a lack of rubbish bins and goodie bags. The latter was obviously a concern for many, as even the specially issued GTI shirt was already sold out on Friday.

Clear communication and more signposting could certainly counteract this and spread the festive atmosphere to all corners of the Autostadt. Especially as some people didn't realise whether they were even welcome in their VW or Audi apart from the Golf, Polo, Lupo and Up GTI, as was customary at Wörthersee. They were! As our picture gallery proves.

According to VW, around 15,000 visitors found their way to the Golf party at the weekend - at its peak on Saturday there were around 9,000 with a total of over 700 cars including the 103 exhibitor vehicles on the grounds. That's quite a lot for a first time event. The GTI Fan Fest came to an atmospheric conclusion with a motorcade across the Volkswagen factory site.

Around 200 vehicles followed the roads on the cordoned-off area, accompanied by a concert of honking horns, on which non-road-legal cars were also allowed to roar. Various employees had their cameras out and the factory fire brigade stood guard. Meanwhile, we had a unique ride, which you will read more about in the next few days.

It was a successful start, and the organising team can certainly benefit from the experience gained. Just listen to the community and it will work! In any case, the new GTI Fan Fest has nothing to fear from growth. There is still plenty of room for improvement. See you next year, dear GTI.

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