Date:         Fri, 5 Jan 2001 08:26:02 -0800
Reply-To:     Alistair Bell <albell@UVIC.CA>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Alistair Bell <albell@UVIC.CA>
Subject:      Golf VR6 4Motion review - one for the sub fans
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

Thought this would add "something" to the VW vs Subaru engine debate.

Funny article, the style of writing is typically British - never see this in
north american mainstream press.

Alistair


Jeremy Clarkson

12/17/2000 Sunday Times - London News International 1GS 26 (Copyright Times
Newspapers Ltd, 2000)


PRETTY soon now, it'll be Boxing Day and men everywhere will be going to the
pub in an invisible bubble of synthetic nerve gas. I'm talking about
celebrity-endorsed aftershave. Un parfum par Rolf Harris.

Luckily, I have smoked enough over the years to have no sense of smell. I
could quite happily eat lunch in the lavatory car on a Chinese overnight
express train, and indeed I have. But despite this, I'm able to tell when
someone nearby is wearing aftershave because my face starts to melt.

What the hell do they put in this stuff? Pig pee with a subtle infusion of
Agent Orange - ideal for the urban minimalist. Damn right. Two drops of Eau
de Toilette de Syd Little and you'll have no paint on the walls and your
furniture will have spontaneously combusted.

And more to the point, why do men wear it? I seem to remember when I was 16
that splashing a handful of Denim on my chops was a bit like showering in
acid. It hurt, and women couldn't smell it anyway because they were doused
from head to foot in that nasal nuke known as Charlie.

Furthermore, we only wore aftershave at that age to show we were old enough
to have face hair. But now we're 40, there seems little point. It's
effeminate, offensive, expensive and they probably test it on puppies. Look
at it this way. Henry Cooper and Kevin Keegan liked to splash it all over,
and David Attenborough does not. I know because, beneath that Daktari suit,
I'm sure he does not sport a silver chain.

Do not trust a man who wears jewellery. You've got a necklace and a bracelet
and you're wearing perfume, so why stop there? Why not a brooch and a tiara?
Why not go ahead and get a couple of breast implants and a g-string?
Jewellery is for women or show-offs or people like David Beckham, who, it
seems to me, are a bit of both.

If, therefore, you are given some aftershave for Christmas, pour it down the
sink and see just what it does to the pipes. Then be glad you didn't get
some in your eyes.

I bring this up because I've just spent some time in a Volkswagen Golf.
Nobody who sports an ID bracelet and the aroma of a lap- dancing bar
changing room would be seen dead in a car like this. If someone ate all the
Amish horses, this is what they'd use instead.

So what is the Golf these days? It's not as nice to drive as a Ford Focus,
that much is clear. It's nowhere near as cheap as the alternatives from
countries where they eat dogs. It's not so pretty as the offerings from
Italy and, as a style statement, it's back there with the Puffa: no good at
all in a world of Audi A2s and A- class Mercedes.

But that said, on a menu full of stuff that comes on a bed of jus with a
medley of reductions, this is the fish and chips with mushy peas. When all
around is too complicated, too fussy, too Paco Rabanne, this is just what
you want.

But which model? You can have a 1.4, a choice of 1.6es, a 1.8, a 2.0, a 2.3
V5, any number of diesels and that's before we get to the trim levels. E, S,
ES, GTi, GT, TDi. PD, 1.8T. Clear? Now how many doors do you want? Three?
Five? Four? Well, that'll be the Bora then, sir.

Obviously, my eye was drawn to the absolute top-of-the-range, Pounds 20,000
V6, four-wheel-drive version called, amusingly (if you're German), 4Motion.

I thought this would be some kind of Euro-answer to those Japanese upstarts,
the Subaru Impreza and the Mitsubishi Evo6. I thought it would be an
all-wheel-drive, 200bhp, roadburning, pant-lighting, gasp- inducing crazy
Golf.

It isn't. It may have a six-speed gearbox and, with a top speed of 145mph,
it may be the fastest Golf of all time, but no matter how hard you try, this
is still John Wesley low church, and easy on the sherry.

While the Subaru and Mitsubishi can pull your hair out, the Golf 4Motion
just plods along being soft and comfy. It's the fat makeup artist, backstage
at an Alexander McQueen fashionshow. It has the passes to be there, but it
doesn't fit. It is not exciting.

And could someone please explain why it comes with three proper seatbelts in
the back and three head restraints when it has only two doors. Try, by all
means, fastening a bolshy two-year-old into her seat from the front, but
make sure you have no judo classes afterwards.

It's an insane car. If you want fire and brimstone, get a Subaru. If you
want four doors, get a Subaru. And if you want the last word in reliability
- well, get a Subaru.

But what if you don't want the smells and bells of the fire- spitting,
death-is-upon-you, high church Impreza? What if you favour the plain white
walls of Methodism? Well, forget the 4Motion.

You can have exactly the same car for Pounds 5,000 less. You may have heard
of it. It's called the GTi.