Choosing options.

I had a fair bit of advice from friends about what options to choose, and I think I've managed to ignore all of it.

Firstly, the model. I won't be buying an R. Too much money and I'm over 40 now so I don't need anything that hardcore. I'm not having a poverty spec car so therefore it will have to be a GT. There are 3 engines available, two of which are Diesel powered. One day I might buy a Diesel car, but it won't be a smallish sporty coupe. So 2.0 TSI 210 GT. This now comes with 207 horsepower, or 210 err... whatever VW measure instead of horsepower.

Then the expensive choices. Leather. This is quite a difficult choice, as I think all 'Premium' cars should have it but I'd never specify it on a Focus or Golf, regardless of the model. So what about on the Scirocco? In the end I've decided against for three reasons. 1) The standard Merlin interior is very high quality and looks great in a mixture of textures and dark shades. 2) Cost. Leather adds over £1200 to the price. And that's without electric adjustment and heating. 3) In my opinion the Leather just doesn't look that great.

Sat Nav. I might have been tempted to pay the £1200 to upgrade to the factory sat nav if the standard audio unit was not so feature rich. As standard the Scirocco comes with a touch screen info system that has an in-dash 6 disk CD player and an arm-rest mounted media unit that will play tunes from my iphone. Regardless of what upgrade I choose I can't have both multiplayer and media unit. We also have an excellent Tom-Tom, so job done, no upgrades chosen. Except I did specify DAB for the radio at £130. It feels a bit wrong to have to pay for it, but I'm not going without.

Sunroof. Have you seen inside a GT? Even the headlining is black. So even though I've heard other people's criticism that the sunroof is expensive, heavy (adding weight in the worst possible place) and only opens a crack, for me its a must have. So tick. One small point here though, if you specify the Sunroof then you automatically lose the in-roof storage unit which everyone will tell you, and the passengers grab handle, which no-one will.

Big wheels. The standard 18" wheels are already pretty huge and the test drive I had in a car with 19" wheels felt quite harsh and crashy, even in comfort. So the standard wheels stay. There is an option to have the 19s in gloss black with piano black interior trim. Shame you can't have that with the 18s, as I'd probably have gone for it.

DSG. Tempting, but ultimately I don't want an auto box, no matter how clever it is. Like Diesel, maybe one day, but not on a smallish coupe. And that's forgetting the extra cost and weight.

Anthing else. A couple of little things - rear parking sensors, because I hope Suzi will enjoy driving the car on occasion, and I know you really can't see out the back. And folding Mirrors. It will live in our single garage when not in use, so they should make life a little easier.

And that's how I chose my options.

The test drive.

I should let you know that I've driven a lot of cars. I even worked at an airport for 5 months valet parking, and the stories I have from that could fill their own blog. My current, a Jaguar X-Type is my 15th car since 1987, which doesn't include 3 or 4 of my parents' cars, 2 of my wife's and dozens of hire cars that I've regularly driven.

So I know what I like, and really don't need to test drive 10 different varients to compare the nuances.

I called a couple of the dealers in my area to check that they had a suitable car to test. I may not have chosen all my options at this stage, but I did know that I wanted to drive a 2.0 TSI GT 210 with a manual 'box. Colbornes at Guildford had a relevant demonstrator, so I booked the test.

As always, I couldn't help but smile when the guy brought the car around. It was a Rising Blue example and looked great. The dealer drove us off the forecourt to a local garage - Suzi sat in the back (really not keen at all due to the blackness of everything and the small windows) me as passenger. Then I got a go. Guildford turned out to be the perfect place for a test drive, as I got to drive on roads the I know well, on a mixture of narrow back roads, moderate A roads and a couple of miles of dual carriageway.

The car is fast. I owned a Corrado VR6 with 197bhp prior to my Jag, which is the 3.0 sport with 231bhp. But the Scirocco is in another league. The performance figures don't show it, but I suspect its the delivery of the power from the Turboed engine, and the traction, and of course, the fact that everything is new and modern.

The test route was obviously the dealers standard one, about 8 to 10 miles I'd guess. Most of it passed in a blur, my over-riding feeling being that it was everything I hoped it would be, and that it would take a bit of getting used to to get the best out of it. I tried the three suspension settings, and to be honest, couldn't really tell the difference - the ride was fairly harsh and crashy on the poorly repaired Surrey back roads - but the car was fitted with optional 19" wheels that I won't be having.

The Dealer said no more than 10 words through the whole experience, but that was probably what I would have wanted. I've requested a quote, telling him that my order would go to the dealer that gave me the best price. So we'll see.

Why a Scirocco?

In 2008 when Volkswagen released the new mark 3 Scirocco, I was driving this:

a 1994 VW Corrado VR6, which I'd had a couple of years although I'd always loved them. The original Scirocco never really interested me though, I'd rather have had a Capri (which I did) or a proper hot hatch (ditto - an Astra GTE). The Corrado was supposed to be a stop gap for me, to replace... well that's another story, lets just say I had £2500 and decided that a 13 year old Corrado VR6 would be a good way to spend it.

Given that it arrived with over 100 thousand miles on the clock, I was lucky - it was still fast and great fun to drive, even if the 2.9 litre lump in the front made the nose a little heavy. In the three years I had it almost nothing went wrong, although on a car that age a few things did wear out. Eventually I sold it, to a young lad who will no doubt enjoy it, and I moved on to a 10 year old X-type.


But every time I saw a new Scirocco on the road it made me smile, and I hoped it would be as much fun to drive as my old Corrado - and looked forward to the day that the price of them would come down to my sort of levels.

And then I though perhaps its time I had a new car. I've never bought new before and things are going ok at the moment. Now to the actual question; why a Scirocco? Look at the listings in the car mags and a few relevant reviews and answer me this; £25k or under, 0-60 in 7 or less, 2 doors but 4 proper seats, some room for luggage. There are only a couple of answers - Renaultsport Megane, Seat Leon, Golf GTI, and Scirocco are the obvious ones. Of these, only the Scirocco makes me smile when I see one. Let me know if I missed anything.

Through this blog I plan to detail the whole experience, from test driving, talking to dealers, choosing options, buying and running the car.