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VW New Beetle and Golf City – Reasonably Sublime to Downright Ridiculous Volkswagen's entry level Golf City is a nice little car, affordable and comfortable and undoubtedly easy to live with. Then there's the New Beetle convertible. I got to drive both vehicles back to back, spending about three weeks with them in total – mostly (fortunately) puttering around in the Golf, no pun intended. Well, okay; I did make the pun deliberately. The Golf City restored the good taste for Volkswagens that I'd had before I was infected by the nasty bug. more... VW Jumps into "Cute Ute" segment with Tiguan It's cute and it's a ute – and Volkswagen is hoping to score a share of the popular small SUV market with its new Tiguan. Volkswagen says the Tiguan crossover SUV is an ideal companion for "city adventurers", a "rare species created to help you navigate your way through the urban jungle". I don't know about the "ideal" part, but Volkswagen's kick at this segment of the marketplace – a niche populated by the likes of the Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4, Nissan Rogue et al – is a good one, and one that brings some European flair to the segment. more... A "Non-Coupe" is Volkswagen's Latest Scoop Who'd have thought a Volkswagen sedan could be sexy, an object of automotive lust? Yet automotive lust is the feeling I got during my week with the new Passat CC, a wonderful 2+2 sedan that got me thinking about keeping a VW in my garage for the first time in my life. more... From the company whose microbus became legendary among travelers and hippies comes the 2009 Routan, Volkswagen's first honest-to-goodness "garden variety" minivan. At heart, the Routan is a re-badged Chrysler (hence the Dodge pun in my headline) built, apparently, on a Chrysler platform and assembled in a Chrysler plant. But just as The Who's version of "Summertime Blues" takes a rock and roll standard and turns it into a "Who-ized" classic, there's more to the Routan than just a Chrysler with different logos. more.... VW Jetta Diesel – TDI, not TD-ous In a time of unstable gasoline prices, one might think a hybrid is the best way to go. But there's a proven alternative that offers the gas mileage you want without requiring a hybrid's premium price. It's the diesel, an engine that has been around forever but which has also been dumped upon nearly forever for such things as emissions and noise. But today's diesel can be different from days gone by, if Volkswagen's "clean diesel" technology is any indication. more.... Volkswagen GTI – Upgrades Your "Zip" Code Volkswagen's zippy little GTI is back, a sporty hatchback that's fun to drive yet practical as well. The GTI, which could perhaps be called the fairest haired boy in the Golf/Rabbit family, traces its roots back to 1976, when Volkswagen introduced its "compact, wild, young racer" to the Autobahn. According to the company, the GTI was planned as a limited series of 5,000 units, but the market spoke and VW listened – and the rest, apparently, is history. more....
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