My wife is not really a "car person" by any means. She likes something practical, and that is about the end of her list of requirements.
She also gets fairly attached to her cars like they are a pet or something, and hates to get rid of them.
In the last 13 years, she has had TWO vehicles total.
For the last seven years she's been driving around a VW Jetta exactly like this:
She loved it, it served it's purpose, but it also hit 160k miles recently. I also didn't care too much for the wimpy NA 2.0 4-banger in it. The gas mileage wasn't as great as you'd think either, since it was an automatic (she refuses to learn to drive a manual). I convinced her she needed something new, and she wanted another Jetta. However, I wanted something with a bit more under the hood.
So I convinced her that we should get a VW Passat instead (same color, wheels, etc. as in the pic):
It has a 280hp 3.6L V6 mated to a 6-speed Tiptronic auto (same drivetrain as in the $70k+ Tourag SUV). 0-60 in 6.6 seconds, and a 14.1 in the 1/4, all while decked out in near BMW level luxury (not quite on a BMW budget yet
).
While the engine is a "V"6, it only has 10* of separation between the two banks of cylinders.
After reading all the reviews, I was pretty sure I would like this car, but after driving it about 150 miles yesterday, I actually really, really love it. It has all kinds of techie toys, like Xenon headlights that turn to the side when you are cornering (so you can see the road better on curves), push button ignition (you slide the key into a slot on the dash and push it in and the car starts). It also has a surprising amount of leg and trunk room, plus all the conveniance features you can imagine (12 way heated power seats, dual climate control, 6 disc in-dash changer, built in sun screen shades in the back windows, moisture sensing windshield wipers, blah, blah, blah ).
And the engine is very responsive, and the car seriously actually feels fast. I romped on it a few times last night to pass on the highway, and it will run from 50-90 like nobody's business.
I would venture to guess that my LS1-powered Trans Am (stock) was probably slower with the 2.73 gears (before the torque convertor and other mods I did) from a roll than this car is.
So far I'm very impressed.
Cliffnotes - Replaced my wife's VW with it's big brother model. Very nice car IMO, with a bit of pep, and more luxury than you'd expect out of a VW.