Gadgetory

well here it is the fabled car VW brought back from the dead and o8 but left it in the grave for us here in the US thanks for that we get a few days the whole forum afterlife experience let's drive this 2014 Scirocco are no still not coming to the US and check the tech now I loved the first generation car one of the best things Giorgetto Giugiaro ever did here is the new Scirocco very different there's hardly a corner on the whole thing and notice the wrist strength this car has most little cars when they want to get sporty get really gaudy they really try hard this one doesn't care if you notice it very subtle but a design you don't see a lot in the US sort of the short but long low sleek hatchback kind of cars we just don't buy here very often maybe that's why they don't bring it here now well the Scirocco looks real different on the outside it doesn't look unfamiliar at all on the inside you've seen this VW design language in just about all of their cars especially on the golf a couple of nice crisp gauges up there just being a Euro Car it's kilometers only you've got these VW controllers on the wheel for volume and changing some of the displays in the center of the dash head unit this is I think the top of the line model right here it's got navigation optical disc SD card the way you do your portables is via one of these MD eyes they call it a multi-device interface I'm not crazy about it because I'd rather have USB they'd have to go by proprietary pigtails all the time and you know I hate the fact that you can't actually put your portable in there and close the door but what really matters in this car is the driving hardware starts up here with a comfort normal or sports selector for your suspension this is an adaptive suspension you've got in this vehicle called the and have a chassis control it runs independently of your drive modes this is a dual clutch DSG gearbox in Europe it's also available with a 6-speed manual back for drive one more detent for sport up and over it gets you into a manual gate that holds to redline and this is gonna be a key part of this vehicle's personality especially when you've got a small turbocharged motor your gearbox has to be really good because the engine can't just grunt its way through any situation now notice I put this guy in Reverse all I hear is a bunch of beeping because we've got an optical sensor system in the back interesting lis the our model does not seem to be available with a rear camera I think others sure ACOs are it's a weird little omission but that kind of gets us to the thenot this vehicle has very little in the way of driver assistance there's no blind spot detection there's no lane departure there's no adaptive cruise there's just cruise control this is actually a very simple car even loaded I was tuning around the radio here and it just races through all the frequencies because it uses a bunch of odd numbers so when I tried to get to 740 KCBS here in San Francisco the best I could do was 738 station list there is no station list to the am band available she would beat your ass over a school bench if you said the wrong thing to her love that now under the very low snoot on this car you've got a very nice little motor compact yes 2 litre inline-four sitting sidesaddle TSI it is a turbocharged motor direct injection brings valve timing of course all the usual modern tricks of motoring the numbers 261 horse 258 foot-pounds of torque nice torque number because of that turbo in there you're sitting sidesaddle and driving the front wheels only a big differentiator from a Golf R here in the US which would have all-wheel drive this guy does not come that way 5.8 0 to 60 for a car that weighs about 30 170 pounds don't have a really good translation of mpg from Euro standards to us but a Golf R for example gets about 1927 with a similar layout do what happens when I drive this car I hate it because it reminds me what we don't get in this country really sharp European cars that are not sports cars but are more sporting than a lot of sports cars if you know what I mean three things you come away from in this vehicle first of all best implementation of a turbo I think I have ever driven secondly when you're in sport mode on this DSG at least for my taste it shifts exactly as I would shift and the linearity of the steering I find real good I'm not sure if it's variable or how its mapped all I know is it feels right in every part of the clock on just about every radius of turn I really enjoy driving these fun okay it's a little hard to price the car they don't sell here but let me give it to you in pound sterling and don't just do a currency conversion it doesn't work that way with cars twenty-eight thousand pounds for the Scirocco are with a manual 6-speed gearbox that Maps roughly to where a Golf R is in the US market so we're in the rough ballpark it's held back only by its lack of four-wheel drive for today's modern purist but this is a vehicle I would buy if they brought it here me