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.