It’s really quite simple… That car has 4 doors. The “legend” of the GTI is that it’s supposed to be an inexpensive sports car and sports cars just don’t have 4 doors - they have 2 doors and a good engine.

That’s not “the return of a Legend” - it’s the return of a huge mistake they’ve made before - watering down the GTI and making it a Golf/Rabbit with a few extra features. The GTI needs to be distinct from the Golf or else it’s not a GTI.

Personally, I don’t really like it. I mean, it’s nice enough and better than a lot of their competitors, but I don’t know that it’s an improvement over the Mk 5 Golf/GTI/R32…

Here’s a Mk 5 GTI…

The Mark 5 “face” just has more attitude. The Mk 6 looks more pedestrian. The Mk 6 front end would be fine if it were a Golf/Rabbit, but it doesn’t look sporty. It looks like they’re watering down the appearance of the GTI, which is never a good idea - that’s what the Golf/Rabbit is for.

Oh well, it is what it is. I didn’t like the Mk 5 when I first saw it either, but it grew on me and now I love our Mk 5 R32… We’ll see what I think in a year…

Nice looking car though…

Please, if you understand straight people - explain that photo to me!

Nevertheless, we did manage to put about 10,000 miles on it the first year and had a great time with it. Initially I was driving to Norwalk, CT a couple a times a week on the Merritt Parkway, which is a blast with all the curves and whatnot. And on Memorial Day I drove single-handed to Chicago with a stop in Cincinatti both directions.

I haven’t gotten enough pictures of it, but here is one from the Chicago trip - this one is taken in Oak Park, near the Frank Lloyd Wright house…

Gas mileage isn’t all that great with it, but with a 3.2L, VR6, 250hp engine you don’t really expect it to be. I get about 24 mpg on the highway driving “comfortably fast”, which isn’t bad in my book. If I slowed down, I’d get better gas mileage, but that’s not why I bought an R32. (Do make sure you have a good radar detector).

One of my favorite things about the car is when Dan drops off something at the front door and then drives away to go park it in the garage. The sound (or should I say growl) of the car is just perfect. I get this big grin on my face and think “yeah, that’s my car…”

Would I get another R32? Absolutely, in a heartbeat…

You’d think the nav system is completely wonderful, but I’m on a trip right now in Chicago and I gotta say there are times I love the nav system, and times I wish I had a map on me. What you lose with navigation systems is a sense of place and location. With a map you get a big picture and see things in relation to each other. Coming into a new city I feel a bit lost using a nav system to get me around. Sure it does a good job, but I don’t really have a clue where I am, and I miss that. I want to understand the city and the nav system doesn’t do that for me. I tried Google Maps and that helps a little, but for really getting and understanding a big map with lots of information density will beat Google Maps any day.

In other words, if you’re traveling through New York and don’t have a radar detector that detects Ka band radar - you’re dead meat if you like to drive as fast as I do… And I should mention our Valentine One did really well - I’d recommend it to anyone who’s looking for a good radar detector.

It is pretty much loaded:

• VR6 (6 cylinder) engine
• Leather seats
• Climate control (set a temperature and forget it)
• Auto dimming rear view mirror
• Rain sensing wipers
• Front and side airbags
• Alloy wheels
• Premium sound with CD player

It has just over 67,000 miles, has a 5 speed manual transmision, is in great mechanical condition, and has NO RATTLES!

In addition it has mud flaps (to keep the car cleaner), a trailer hitch (you can tow up to 1,500 lbs), and a VW roof rack.

Asking Price: $7,900 (priced below blue book value for a quick sale)

Contact me at jay@slicksurface.com or 917/447-2572 if you’re interested…

Update: The car has been sold. There was actually a bidding war for the car (nearly everyone who saw it wanted it), and it wound up going for more than the asking price.

But the funniest thing was taking it to the local dealer - Yorkdale VW. When we were there over Christmas we saw a black, low-profile roof rack on a GTI which looked a lot better than the standard, chunky thing that VW sells. The dealer here in the US didn’t know how to get one so I figured the VW dealer in Toronto could get one…

So I get this guy in the parts department who tries to help me, but he’s junior and looking at all the wrong pages in the catalogs. So he goes and gets help from the more senior guy who’s on the phone. He asks what type of car I have and I say an ‘08 R32. “You have a 2008 R32 here?”, “Yeah…” I say… “I’m creaming my pants right now…” he responds…

He comes out to the car to take a look, and while we’re walking through the shop he tells a couple guys there’s an ‘08 R32 outside… When we get out there there’s already someone looking at the car (probably a sales guy or manager). The parts guy and I take a quick look at the car and then head back inside. We look through the computer to see if we can find the low profile roof rack, but can’t find one - even for an ‘07 GTI.

On my way back out to the car I see a bunch of guys looking at it. The manager says, “I could make a $100 if you stayed here another 15 minutes - just in charging the guys to look at the car.” Later I think it’s more like he’s losing a $100 since they’re not working…

I get out the car and there’s at least 8 guys standing around looking at it. One of them asks me to pop the hood, I do… They ask how much horsepower it has - one guy thought it had 280 - I say 250. They talk about how VW could fit a 3.6 liter engine in there and make an incredibly fast car. I didn’t correct them (the 3.6 liter won’t fit in there). The funny part was how respectful of the car they were - it was like they were afraid to touch it. I wouldn’t have cared - I even left it unlocked when I went back in with the parts guy figuring some of them would want to look inside, but no one did…

I barely had enough time to get home and change for Dan’s grandmother’s funeral, so I excused myself, closed the hood and left… Too bad I didn’t have more time. I really wanted to get some of their dealer plates and a pic of it in front of their showroom so I could do fake “look, you can get R32s in Canada” post… But I didn’t have the time…

I think the drama last week was due to a number of factors. First, it was the last day of the month and they wanted to close deals. It seemed like every sales guy (and their dogs) were at the dealership making it a bit of zoo. Second, there was just simple miscommunication (things were on the wrong line of the invoice, etc.) Then there were a few jerks around there, and unfortunately our sales guy shared an office with one. And lastly, they mishandled the financing. Their first offer was for 7.5x% through VW Credit, then they went down to 6.89% through some bank whose name I didn’t recognize (we wound up getting 6.49% through our bank - Chase).

But he made up for it last night. I’m thinking he must have read my rant on VWVortex ’cause we went into another office (away from the rude guy), and he was pretty meticulous. It also helped that the place was quieter and calmer…

We’re doing a road trip to Toronto this weekend, so we’ll have pictures of the car early next week…

Knowing I was just going to stick it in the parking garage for a few days, we drove around last night. I took it pretty easy since I was just getting used to the car and it’s still in it’s break in period - not to mention that I’m a bit petrified of potholes with the 18″ rims…

All in all, it’s a pretty slick car. Sounds great, seems really solid (critics would say it feels heavy). The few times I pushed it a little it felt really surefooted. However, while I’d read someone who said it felt go-cart-like, it didn’t. The Mini Cooper S felt like a go-cart, the R32 feels too big and substantial for that… Then again the Mini was too much work to drive and I used to like to get back into the GTI and feel real power and more pampering… The R32 is like our old GTI, only on steroids…

• 1985-1986: A rusted out yellow 1974 VW Super Beetle I got from my brother-in-law
• 1986-1988: A copper 1980 Honda Accord LX
• 1997-1999: A black 1997 VW Golf GL
• 2000-2007: A silver VW GTI VR6 GLX
• 2003-2005: A black 1995 VW Passat GLX
• 2006-2007: A dark silver 2003 Mini Cooper S
• 2007-?: A candy white 2008 VW R32 (on order)

Of those 7, 5 have been VWs… Initially it was just ’cause I needed a cheap car and my brother-in-law had one, but now it’s a lot more than that…

The 1980 Honda we bought used and it was a nightmare. I was in college in Austin and the thing kept breaking down and it was out of warranty and the repairs were expensive and my parents just didn’t understand how much of my money the car was eating up… When someone rear ended me while I was sitting at a red light and the car was totaled I was actually pretty happy not to have the expense of a car.

After that bad experience I wasn’t exactly running back to Japanese cars even though my parents had always had good luck with Toyotas. The ‘97 Golf I bought ’cause I wanted an inexpensive car that looked decent… I test drove the Golf and a Jeep Wrangler and the Golf was a lot more fun to drive, so I got it. I liked the car well enough that I was pretty sure my next car would be a VW…

Then Ellen DeGeneres came out on TV. You might not think that it would have an impact on car buying, but for gay men (like me) it definitely did. Ellen’s coming out was a huge deal. Gay people didn’t have the visibility back then that they do now and advertisers were scared and started pulling their ads from her show.

So what did VW do? They took the spot right after her character came out and started a new ad campaign with the following ad:

The straight world didn’t really think too much about it, but gay men and lesbians took notice. It wasn’t enough to get lesbians away from Subaru (who’s had the lesbian icon Martina Navratilova as their spokesperson), but it solidified gay men’s love for VW.

Yes, there are bumps along the road, like when a sales guy from Potamkin (the VW dealer in Manhattan) woke me up one morning and proceeded to call me a “fucking faggot” and then hang up on me after I told him I didn’t think much of his dealership because when I tried to buy the Golf from them in ‘97 they refused to tell me the details of the financing until after I had signed the document to purchase the car (VW customer service had the sales manager at Potamkin call me to apologize for the sales guys comments).

And we’ve had at least one really frustrating problem with our GTI - a plastic part in the door kept breaking which would drop the window into the door meaning the car wasn’t wasn’t secure and couldn’t be left in anything other than an attended garage. It happened 3 or 4 times and was always hugely inconvenient. They did eventually figure out how to fix it and it hasn’t been a problem since.

And the Passat we never should have bought… It had constant problems and they were really expensive to fix. We would have spent less if we had bought a new car. But what I didn’t appreciate at the time was how hard of a life it had had - which isn’t something I can hold against VW.

But all in all I love VW. The design of their cars is still pretty good (though not always the best), and I like the level of fit and finish, and I feel like you get a really solid car for the money.

And of course the R32 is just special… It’s going to be a blast to own and if anything serious ever happens to it (knock wood), I’ll be really upset.

But other people are saying that VW will be holding the cars at port and not releasing them until August since they want to do a proper ‘launch’ for the car and not have the cars trickle out one at a time… While I’m not happy the car will be sitting in the hot sun for the better part of a month, at least we should get it early in August… Hopefully we’ll be able to take it to Canada when we go up to renew Dan’s visa in mid-August…

VW only brings 5,000 R32s to the U.S. and then just every few years (last and first time was 2004) - so it’s definitely not a common car (though it looks common since it’s so similar to the Rabbit). And if the previous R32 is any indication, it should retain it’s value pretty well since it’s so unique…

The R32 is an extension of the cars we’ve been buying for a while now… In 1997 I bought a black Golf GL which I leased for 2 years. After that car we went without a car for a year (something you can do when you live in Manhattan), and then we bought a silver 2000 GTI GLX (VR6) which we’ve had now for over 7 years. It’s been a good car, but it’s out of warranty and when we realistically consider the repair costs (going to a dealer, like we do), it’s not that much more to buy the R32…

I expect the car will be a blast to drive. One person who drove it said it felt like a really big go-cart. Given how I liked the ‘go cart’ handling of the 2003 Mini Cooper S we had for a year (and just sold), this should be a bigger and more powerful version and probably even more fun to drive than the Mini.

We won’t actually get the car until sometime in August, but in the meantime I’m spending a fair amount of time on VWVortex getting psyched about it…

I thought I’d do a run down of what was good about the car and what wasn’t so good…

The good parts…

• The car was an absolute blast to drive… It really does feel like a go-cart…
• The design of the car is flawless. Unlike the New Beetle which pales in comparison to the original Beetle, the new design of the new Mini is as good as the design of the original. It’s both current and timeless…
• People smile when they see the car and other Mini drivers often wave when they see you.
• You really can get 4 adults in the car provided you put the tall people in the back seat. (If you put the tall people in the front seats there’s absolutely no leg room in the back.)
• The rain sensors for the windshield wipers were excellent. Our 2000 GTI has problems when it’s just raining lightly despite having a way to adjust the sensitivity. The Cooper S didn’t have a way to set the sensitivity, but always seemed to get it pretty much right.
• It retains it’s value pretty well. We sold our Mini for $18,500 and it was 4 years old and out of warranty. The original sticker price was around $26,000, so it depreciated 29% in 4 years.
• It had no mechanical problems while we had it. There were rattles and squeaks, the windshield developed stress cracks twice, and one of the tires wore out, but the basic mechanics of the car worked great.
• The zenon headlights were great.
• The car can be configured with daylight running lights (contrary to recent claims by VW). It’s just not the default setting (which is a bit stupid on a small car that can use the visibility).

The not so good parts…

• The fit and finish wasn’t so great. Despite the fact that the car was pretty heavy, a lot of the parts on the car seemed cheaply made. When I told the guy at Mini of Manhattan that I wanted to get rid of some of the rattles before I sold it, he commented “Anyone who has a problem with rattles shouldn’t be buying a Mini.”
• The “premium” Harmon Kardon sound system was underwhelming. The biggest irritation was the frequent rattling of the door at moderate volume levels.
• You can’t adequately block out the sunlight from the panoramic sunroof. Why they only provide a mesh pull screen I’ll never know - it just doesn’t do the job. (Curiously, the Audi A3 S-line we test drove recently had the same problem.)
• If you don’t set the trip computer to “Range” (which tells you how many you can go without running out of gas), chances are you’ll miss the little red light that tells you you’re out of gas since it’s in the center of the dashboard in a place you’re not usually looking.
• While it was fun to drive, you always felt like you had to push the engine for it to be fun. The dealer told me to keep it above 3,000 RPM when I was doing the test drive and that pretty much sums up how you have to drive the car. Much less than 3,000 RPM and you have very little power.
• Since you had to push the engine over 3,000 RPM to get power, the gas mileage was worse than you’d think. It averaged 28-29 MPG. By comparison our 2000 GTI VR6 gets 29-30 MPG and has a considerably more powerful engine.
• There’s no spare tire - the car has run-flat tires. This means you can only go so far when you have a flat before you find/buy a new tire. I guess it’s not all bad, but it made me a bit nervous.