Don’t let the badge fool you
ON the HBO series “Entourage,” entertainment agent-weasel Ari Gold is busted for sticking S600 badges on his wife’s Mercedes-Benz S500.
This is the most profound moment in the history of television.
Because, after all, his wife doesn’t know that her car is missing four cylinders and nearly 200 horsepower, and she doesn’t care, since the S500 is already excessively horsy and quick for her needs, plying the golden seas of Beverly Hills. All she cares about is the status associated with the S600 badge.
Ari has performed a cretinous variation on the practice of “de-badging,” which is to strip off the insignia that places the vehicle in the carmaker’s caste system. In Europe, this is typically done to dress down very expensive cars -- such as a monster Merc tuned by AMG, or an M-series BMW -- so as not to draw too much attention. Ari’s rendition says equally as much about American attitudes toward unseemly displays of wealth.
See, I told you it was profound.
With this as backdrop, I invite you to pull out your screwdrivers and go to town on the newly redesigned 2006 VW GLI. This maxed-out version of the humble Jetta offers a giddy amount of car for the money. Under the hood is a 2.0-liter, 200-hp turbocharged four-cylinder paired with a six-speed manual transmission (the same as the Audi A3 and A4). The GLI also gets a sport-suspension upgrade, 17-inch wheels and tires, red-painted brake calipers (How did I ever get along without them?), bi-xenon gas headlights and lots of cosmetics, such as a blacked-out honeycomb grill, chrome exhaust tips, and leather and alloy fetish-wear around the cabin.
With the power sunroof, satellite radio, heated sport seats and a couple of other options, our test car came to -- hear the adding machines clacking away -- $27,605. At that price, the GLI goes
nose to nose and feature for feature with the segment’s best value, the Acura TSX. And were it
not for the VW and Jetta badges, you would have no trouble cross-shopping the car with the Audi A4 2.0T, the entry-premium sedan and corporate cousin with which it shares its powertrain and so much hardware. In fact, if you’re not too squeamish about the badge prestige, the GLI pretty much tromps the Audi on a price-per-feature basis. With the judicious application of said screwdriver, a heat gun and some leverage -- voila! -- you can have an entry-premium car without, if you will, the premium.
Though the Jetta is no longer an entry-level compact up against the likes of Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic or Ford Focus, it still keeps one foot in the low-rent district (all the more reason to use a screwdriver). VW offers a “Value Edition” Jetta, with a base price of $17,900. For that you get the 2.5-liter five-banger, the five-speed stick, doors, windows, steering wheel.... A more tolerably equipped model, the 2.5, costs another $2,400.
VW also sells a diesel-powered Jetta TDI that is rated by the EPA at 35/42 miles per gallon city/highway, but of course that car is not available in California. As an aside, it should be noted that diesel powertrains, like fuel-efficient hybrid powertrains, have their own added costs. The Jetta TDI costs about $1,000 more than a comparably equipped 2.5-liter model. VW does sell partial-zero-emission-vehicle versions of the naturally aspirated Jetta, but not the turbocharged versions.
THE Jetta sedan -- which debuted in March, to be followed next year by a wagon -- is a curious design. The skin is as sleek as an otter’s. The low nose of the car echoes the audacious grill design of the new Audis, except in the Jetta the central panel is mirrored steel. So the front of the car looks way sporty. The car grows thicker and heavier at the rear, ending with a truly significant caboose. At 16 cubic feet, the Jetta trunk is huge. I can’t say the car looks particularly well-situated on its wheels, however; for what is essentially a factory-tuner car, the Jetta needs to hunker down more on its suspension.
I haven’t driven the previous-edition GLI, but given its adoration among the European tuner crowd, I gather it had a harder edge than this GLI. This car is certainly quick enough, punchy just off throttle and quite blustery at mid-rpm when the turbo fully spools up. The direct-injection engine produces 100 hp per liter of displacement, a standard of efficiency that until a couple of years ago was achieved by only the most audacious exotics (and Hondas).
The GLI feels like a lot of other VW products in that the clutch is light and servile and the gearshift a tad rubbery. The car has two features that ought to be standard equipment in all cars -- indeed, in life itself: an excellent steering wheel, with pistol-grip-like molding at the 9 and 3 positions and a flat bottom like that on a race-car wheel, and leather-wrapped sport seats (part of a $3,200 option package), with high, rigid bolsters that grab you around the ribs like Mighty Joe Young. These two features give the car a connected, biomechanical feel.
PERHAPS the most premium part of the car is its delicate balance of sporty handling and a supple, serene ride. With carefully calibrated front struts and multi-links in the rear, and both sets of wheels laced together with anti-roll bars, the GLI has very fine cornering manners. Initial turn-in has a nice bite -- 18-inch wheels and tires are an option -- as the GLI takes up the first few inches of relatively soft suspension travel before it firms up. Once it assumes a cornering stance, the GLI hangs on nicely until the 45-series summer tires start to whine. Lifting off the throttle suddenly will bring the rear end around in a nicely progressive slide, and then the stability control kicks in -- nothing snappish here. The trick red calipers, shiny through the alloy rims, promise big stopping power, and deliver.
One of the ironies of global conglomerates’ “premium” divisions -- Toyota’s Lexus, Nissan’s Infiniti, VW’s Audi -- is that, because there is so much part-sharing going on, the lesser brands are often elevated to a point where premium is purely a state of mind. Drive the Toyota Avalon and tell me how it’s not a Lexus. Ditto the Jetta GLI, which feels like an Audi and drives like an Audi because it is, in fact, an Audi. All it needs is an Audi badge.
If you’ve got a screwdriver, I can get you one of those too.
Contact automotive critic Dan Neil at dan.neil@latimes.com.
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
2006 Volkswagen Jetta GLI
Base price: $23,790
Price, as tested: $27,605
Powertrain: Turbocharged and intercooled, dual overhead cam 2.0-liter four-cylinder with direct injection and variable valve timing; sixspeed manual transmission; front-wheel drive with electronic differential lock
Horsepower: 200 at 5,500 rpm
Torque: 207 pound-feet at 1,800 rpm
Curb weight: 3,353 pounds*
0-60 mph: 7.1 seconds*
Wheelbase: 101.5 inches
Overall length: 179.4 inches
EPA fuel economy: 24 miles per gallon city, 32 mpg highway
Final thoughts: We don’t need no stinking badges.
*Car and Driver magazine
