{"id":4193,"date":"2014-06-16T08:25:35","date_gmt":"2014-06-15T22:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/?p=4193"},"modified":"2020-06-20T01:22:30","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T15:22:30","slug":"brazil-scores-a-gol-possibly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/home\/brazil-scores-a-gol-possibly\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazil Scores A Gol \u2013 Possibly"},"content":{"rendered":"

I might not be the world\u2019s biggest soccer\/football fan, but I\u2019m still vaguely interested in the latest FIFA world cup held in S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil.\u00a0 Now, if you\u2019re at all interested in cars, Brazil means two things: biofuel (honestly, these guys are keen on their their ethanol!) and Volkswagens. \u00a0Brazil has their very own VW factory, which explains why Beetles <\/a>and Kombis are some of the most commonly seen vehicles on the roads throughout South America. \u00a0There\u2019s also a car that the Brazilian VW factory produces that doesn\u2019t make it over here but has a name that reflects the Brazilian love of \u201cthe beautiful game\u201d: the Gol. You\u2019ve heard those Latino sports commentators?\u00a0 If you have, you know exactly what \u201cgol\u201d means, although it usually comes out \u201cgoooooooooooooooool!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"vwgol\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So, in honour of the current FIFA World Cup, here\u2019s the low-down on the surprisingly popular VW Gol (not to be confused with the VW Golf <\/a>, another vehicle with a sporting name).\u00a0 Thankfully, I\u2019ve got enough Spanish to get the info off the Mexican and Argentinian websites.<\/p>\n

The Gol is a rather popular hatchback that has been in production since the 1980s, although it\u2019s gone through a few upgrades and updates since then, like most cars.\u00a0 Similar to the Golf and other small hatchbacks, it\u2019s got a smallish engine (1.6 litres, in-line four-cylinders, 101 horsepower at 5250 rpm, 143 Nm at 2500 rpm) and it\u2019s got a 5-speed manual transmission.\u00a0 It\u2019s designed to run on flex fuel, which isn\u2019t surprising, given the Brazilian taste for ethanol biofuel. It\u2019s got a few bells and whistles like Bluetooth preparation, a decent stereo system, air con, fog lights and electric windows (part of the exterior trim on the Argentinian versions of the Gol Cup include a decal of the national flag!) It\u2019s also pretty cheap.<\/p>\n

\"gol2\"<\/a>The Gol comes in a number of versions, with the Argentinian VW site listing the Gol Trend and the Gol Cup (I wonder what this crossover\/light SUV is named after), and the Mexican site listing the plain Gol and the Gol sedan. It seems to be pretty popular.<\/p>\n

So why aren\u2019t we seeing the Gol on Aussie roads? It\u2019s the safety.\u00a0 The Gol is cheap because they cut costs in the safety department (thankfully, this isn\u2019t true of the VWs we get over here). It got one star in the Latin American NCAP tests, at least according to one source. However, the Gol Cup does boast airbags and ABS brakes (something the Mexican site for the Gol didn\u2019t mention \u2013 nothing turned up on the safety\/security page at all).\u00a0 Three-point seat belts of the ordinary kind, are listed as a \u201cfeature\u201d of the base model.<\/p>\n

From my own memories of the cars on South American roads (Peru and Bolivia in the late 1980s in my case), even ABS brakes and airbags is pretty good going.\u00a0 As far as I could make out, the only roadworthiness test was whether or not the car started and could run.\u00a0 Seat belts were optional and squashing several people to one seat was considered sensible (I\u2019ve been one of eight people crammed into a Beetle \u2013 three in the front, four in the back and one (me) in the boot).\u00a0 Buses would trundle along with holes rusted out in the floors where you could see the road passing underneath.\u00a0 Scary stuff, although we took it all in our stride, like the other quirks of life over there.<\/p>\n

Safety may also be the reason why other Brazilian-made WV models don\u2019t make it over here. There are quite a few of them that are unknown here.\u00a0 On the Mexican and Argentinian sites, alongside familiar names like the Beetle, Passat <\/a>, Amarok <\/a>\u00a0, Polo<\/a>, Touareg<\/a>, Scirrocco <\/a>, Tiguan <\/a>and Jetta <\/a>, you\u2019ll also find exotic names like Fox, Crossfox, Suran, Bora, Sharan, up!, Nuevo Vento and Saveiro.\u00a0 But who knows? If they are decent safety-wise, we may yet see them over here. http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/offers-zaim\/turbozaim-zaimy-online-bez-otkazov.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I might not be the world\u2019s biggest soccer\/football fan, but I\u2019m still vaguely interested in the latest FIFA world cup held in S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil.\u00a0 Now, if you\u2019re at all interested in cars, Brazil means two things: biofuel (honestly, these guys are keen on their their ethanol!) and Volkswagens. \u00a0Brazil has their very own VW […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4193"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11932,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4193\/revisions\/11932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}