Volkswagen has always been a brand that is proud of its commercial roots. In fact, many of the vehicles in this illustrious organisation’s past have been vans and trucks. The second-ever vehicle produced by Volkswagen was a commercial van! Therefore, it came as a surprise to no one when Volkswagen Brazil announced that they were launching a pickup truck.
Now, building a vehicle like a pickup truck from the ground up would be extremely expensive. As such, VW Brazil decided to make use of a car in their line-up to act as the starting point in the development of this new truck. This vehicle would be the fairly new Gol, which was launched a few years prior as a Brazilian Golf. The development team at VW Brazil would do away with the rear quarter of the Gol hatchback and would instead place a truck bed over a lengthened Gol Chassis. The truck would use the same 1.5-litre, water-cooled engine as the Gol and the Voyage, along with the same 4-speed manual transmission.
The truck, now known as the Saveiro, was launched to the market in 1983. It was named after a type of Brazilian fishing boat. It was launched with decent success, as it was Volkswagen’s first truck for the Brazilian market, as the Caddy was not widely available in Brazil. Due to its light weight and smaller engine, the Saveiro was more fuel-efficient than most other pickup trucks of the time. While it wasn’t able to carry heavy loads, the truck was extremely popular with people who would transport smaller goods, such as farmers or butchers, to name a few.
Over time, Brazil embraced the Saveiro as their own. Although it was sold all over South America, it remained the most popular in Brazil. The first-generation Saveiro was successful enough to justify a Saveiro model for the second-generation Gol. In fact, until the end of the Gol’s production in 2023, every generation of the Gol would have a Saveiro version, which is a sign of the model’s popularity amongst the South American public.
The Saveiro acted as an ode to the individuality of VW Brazil. They could have simply copied the Caddy, but instead chose to design a model of their own, something that they continued to do all the way to the modern day.
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