The Golf 2, one of the most popular cars in Bosnia and Herzegovina not so long ago, was first produced in Sarajevo 35 years ago.
The Sarajevo Automobile Factory, or TAS for short, was the automotive industry that produced various Volkswagen vehicles (Volkswagen Buba, Volkswagen Golf I, Volkswagen Golf II, Volkswagen Golf III, Jetta 1, Jetta 2 and others).
The factory was established in 1969 by entering into a partnership with Volkswagen, and the cooperation began with the assembly of the Beetle, once the most famous Volkswagen model. The factory was located in Vogosca, and was owned by UNIS and VW, Business Info Reports.
“Tvornica Automobila Sarajevo” which on English translates to “Car factory Sarajevo”. In 1967, a company called “Pretis” has put the licence to produce NSU cars(Audi VAG group cars) and 5 years later, TAS was born. The first car TAS make was, of course, the legendary VW Bettle codenamed “1200 J” and “1300 J”. Those numbers meant the capacity of the flat-4 found in the Bettle, but funny thing is, the 1200 hs actually 1100 cm square while the 1300 has 1300.
The TAS soldiered on with pretty good results. Next car they made was the legendary VW Golf followed by the Jetta. Those cars bringed much more popularity in TAS. People started buying vehicles from TAS more and more, since they were cheaper than their German twins. TAS later also made the Caddy, and finally the Mk2 Golf and Jetta’s. You could recognize the cars by having a “TAS” logo on their grill.
TAS made more and more cars and till 1992 it made more than 300,000 cars. That’s an insane number for a country that was in a communist regime. But the communist regime was what ended TAS. In 1992, the war was already cooked up in Croatia, and in Bosnia it has just started. A giant bomb destroyed the factory. The damage was more than 70 million KM which translates to 35 million euros. That’s a lot for 1992. And what’s even more shocking, the production of the MK3 Golf would have start if it weren’t of the war. The war destroyed everything.
The Volkswagen Golf Mk2 is a compact car, the second generation of the Volkswagen Golf and the successor to the Volkswagen Golf Mk1. It was Volkswagen’s highest volume seller from 1983 and remained in (German) production until late 1992.
The Mk2 was larger than the Mk1; its wheelbase grew slightly (+ 75 mm (3.0 in)), as did exterior dimensions (length + 180 mm (7.1 in), width + 55 mm (2.2 in), height + 5 mm (0.2 in)).
Weight was up accordingly by about 120 kg (260 lb). Exterior design, developed in-house by VW design director Schäfer, kept the general lines of its Giugiaro-designed predecessor, but was slightly more rounded. All told, about 6.3 million second-generation Golfs were built.
