Crowning The Hatchback King — The Carmudgeon Show w Jason Cammisa & Derek Tam-Scott — Ep. 191

Somebody recently asked me why I don't clap. Well, I don't you clap. Because you're getting so much better at it. There it is. We're done. This is another episode of the Carmage and Show. My name is Jason Camisa. I am Derek Tamm, hyphen, Scott. To no one's surprise, we have two German hot hatches behind us, but to perhaps someone's surprise. We're going to talk about an American hot hatch. The first Volvo car arrived in the US in 1955. Ever since, we've helped lead the way in safety innovations.

Making summer memories safer for generations. Celebrate 70 years with us. Visit your local Volvo retailer for the summer safely bonus event.

We're going to make the case for why the original Jeep Cherokee was a hot hatch despite having live axles at both ends. And we're going to talk about various generations of GTIs and how they compare against one another and the fun quotient of various generations.

Which is the best generation of Volkswagen GTI of all time. All right, bye. We will return to you after the jingle.

Hard to clap. You don't have to do it. I don't clap. This is weird. Can you clap again?

Oh, that was the best one I've ever done. Amazing. Good thing I did that.

I wonder if you'll notice that we're sponsored in this episode.

You doubt it. I don't think this will be there. People on YouTube will maybe be able to see that it is in fact sponsored this episode of the Carmage and Show.

Yes, sponsored by Viper Chair, which is very much not computer-generated and is sittering on the table, sittering on the table.

Yeah, last episode. I think it was last episode several episodes ago. We had the chair here on the table.

Excuse me. And there are a whole bunch of comments of people that thought it was CGI there and they were like shook when you got up and just removed the CGI chair.

No, it's really here. I can touch it. I can spin it around. And this is Viper Chair, which is probably made in the United States.

Yes, family-owned company made in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I hope they appreciate my correct pronunciation of that.

Yeah, that is like the state is pronounced. It's cancer. Yeah.

Yeah, you can't go to like, you know, a French person and expect them to call it Paris. No.

And this is Wisconsin or Chevrolet Viper aimed to find the shop chair that sucked and make it unsuck and re-engineered that.

And they're continuing to re-engineer and re-manufacture all of the other garage tools that that suck.

Somebody's chairs, stools, creepers, fans, tool cart, and wheel dollars are coming. That's exciting.

We, as we prepare for Pebble Beach, we have a car going to be shown at Pebble Beach. It has 87 miles on the odometer.

And the people who are showing it are like, please, when you move it around, use wheel dollars.

We don't want additional miles from pushing it around the shop, around the shop, the car's from 1971.

Like when it goes out to the transporter, they're like, so anyway, yeah, that's my wheel dolly story.

Anyway, but these are made with very high quality casters and all actual metal. I don't think I see any plastic on this.

Maybe the wheels are rubberized plastic, but that's it. It's certainly that clear when you try to pick it up.

And I'm going to have to do that this episode. It's hefty.

Yeah. Don't forget to go to ViperIndustrial.com and use a coupon code CarMudgeN for $50 off.

And between 4.11 and 6.22, that's in this time frame now. Viper is giving away a 2021 Python green Porsche GT4.

Not a Viper green. Not Viper green, as we often discuss.

Every $5 you spend at ViperIndustrial.com gets you entered into a chance to win the GT4 plus $15,000 of cash to spend on tires and fuel for your racetrack.

No, that's not a 718 problem.

Okay, I'm going to remove this.

Well built in heavy chips. Don't hurt yourself.

I'm very badly injured.

I'm not dead. I'm just very badly injured. You shot me right in the arm.

I need to watch Austin Powers again.

It hasn't aged that well. It was very hilarious when it came out. There's some stuff where you watch it.

Now you're like, oh really?

Wow, because it's offensive or because it's not.

Yeah, you're just like, wow, this is the same. Yeah, of the time.

And the same way that, well, I don't know, airplane has some moments like that too.

They remain hilarious, but very irreverent.

I watched Ace Ventura Pet Detective the first one recently.

Did we talk about this in podcast?

Or did I just tell you that?

It's not vaguely familiar.

And I think I told you in person anyway, but it held up to me.

My boss said he watched it. He was like, it just wasn't funny.

I'm sorry, Jim Carrey. Carrey's physical comedy will never not be funny.

It's so stupid.

And I have a feeling, I have watched as inspiration for some of the script writing stuff that we've done.

I've watched the opening sequence, the dance number in Austin Powers a couple of times.

And I just want to do a musical number at some point in an icons episode.

It was looking for a way to write that in.

Yeah, it was just that the, I mean, that movie started in within 1.9 seconds.

You were in.

Yes.

You were in, you were smiling, you were laughing.

It was beautifully done.

Thank you, Quincy Jones also.

Yes, that is a Quincy Jones home.

Okay.

We are not just talking about that this episode.

We're not even talking about Shag Wars or Jaguars.

We're barely going to talk about the two cars that are behind us, which are two Volkswagen GTIs.

Okay, we are going to talk mostly about that.

I really mess with you on camera.

For those of you who didn't realize, I always start talking and Derek realizes as I'm talking that the cameras are rolling.

It's not time.

So if he's always sort of surprised post logo sequence, that like recording foot,

it's because I do that on purpose.

Because I mean.

So this episode is about the golf GTI.

I have not consumed all generations of the GTI.

I don't.

I think the earliest GTI I've driven is probably a Mark IV.

Well, you've driven your Shorako and your cabbie, which are Mark ones.

Which are Mark ones.

Functionally just technically.

But can I talk first about how we got here to this episode?

Please.

Okay, how we both physically got, we never know what we're going to pull up.

We don't talk ever.

Can we don't coordinate?

We don't speak to each other.

That's it.

This is all with pain.

No, no, we don't coordinate.

So we both showed up today in GTIs.

But I wanted to talk about last Thursday's revelations episode that went live, which is cheap Cherokee.

Oh, I'm looking forward to the connection you're about to draw between GTI and Jeep Cherokee.

Okay.

So the original XJ Jeep Cherokee is how much longer or shorter than the Mark VIII Volkswagen GTI?

1.3 inches shorter.

3.4, 3.6.

3.5 inches shorter.

It is shorter than a Mark HGTI and the same width.

And it has a smaller wheelbase.

It's a smaller car than a Mark VIII.

Well, how about height?

Whatever.

Okay.

I mean, okay.

I didn't bother looking at the, so the one that we had in the studio shoot, which was a really nice late example.

That was a facelift one, right?

Or second generation I guess?

I think it's last year.

Not second, it's not really a generational change.

They have different, I mean, I think most of the sheet metal, maybe the doors are the same.

Yeah.

And the greenhouse.

It was the fenders and lights and all that stuff for different.

Yeah, and they sort of rounded their tail.

The tailgate was no longer made out of fiberglass, for example, the early coursework.

Anyway, it was a late example and it was lifted, which was a, it looks great and drives great.

It was a little unfortunate for the purpose of the imperative, which you are currently.

Yeah, because it's actually small.

And it was more importantly, I don't think most people realized.

But everything was smaller than...

Everything?

All cars.

I mean, like three series is more much smaller than today's three series.

And so, like, proportionally.

So now you have to do a detailed analysis about what percentage of the size of a Jeep is the BMW 3 Series back then.

And whether that has changed, how that's changed.

I think far more significant was the fact that the Cherokee was the replacement for the Waggeneer.

So the Waggeneer was that full frame, big wood panel thing.

The one that we have in there is...

Was it?

Yeah.

The Grand Waggeneer?

Aha!

The Waggeneer was renamed to be the Grand Waggeneer because there was an XJ Cherokee that was called the Waggeneer.

So, there was the one that has the Cherokee.

The one that had had lights, it was not my style.

Preferred aesthetic.

But yeah, so the Waggeneer was to become the Waggeneer.

And Cherokee.

The Waggeneer was the top-spec model.

The Waggeneer was basically the like Range Rover in the sense that it was the Jeep guts with a more useful civilized body.

Exactly.

So the Land Rover series to Range Rover is Waggeneer to Jeep.

Well, but it's now the Wrangler, but it was back then the CJ.

Yeah, so the Waggeneer was not supposed to be continued, it was supposed to die.

XJ, Waggeneer, which we know is Cherokee, the whole project started in 1978.

Fuel crisis, downsizing all that other happy miserable time.

And by the, when the car was finally ready for production in 1982, somebody at AMC realized that there was still a market for the bigger car.

So they kept the bigger car, renamed it Grand Waggeneer so that it didn't step on the XJ Waggeneer.

The Waggeneer trim of the Cherokee.

Which was the top line.

Which is top sec, yeah.

It was the luxury pick.

So I get to call it a package.

That happened again, by the way, at the end of the Cherokee's life.

Because the, nearing the end of the Cherokee's life, it was to be replaced by what we now know as the Grand Cherokee.

But there was still so much demand for the Cherokee that they kept them both and renamed its replacement the Grand Cherokee.

So this sort of grand and petite, if I made a little bit of joke in the video, Cherokee and Waggeneer had happened twice.

And the Cherokee one had been production for 17 years, which is kind of wild.

Yeah, until 2001.

Yeah.

Then it would be 19 years.

Because I think it was 82.

Oh no, it was 82, it showed 84 production, whatever, whatever.

I don't remember numbers. I did this research entire days ago.

It was, it's been months.

But yeah, it was actually an interesting story.

And the part I don't think I'd realize is how much of an influence a Renault had on the Cherokee.

Renault had controlling interest in AMC by the end of the development process.

And they had a lot to say about the suspension tuning.

And I think that what made the Cherokee different from every other SUV on the market, other than that it was packaging first.

It was the only Ford or Compact SUV you can get, everything else is stupidly a two-door.

So they went to great lengths to have this thing be a usable station wagon in an SUV form.

But the emphasis was actually on on-road drivability comfort handling, which no one had done before.

Correct.

So if you wanted to describe the big innovation, you would characterize it as that.

And Range Rover, I mean, was supposed to be that also to be fair.

They called it a car for all seasons and they put coil spring suspension with self-leveling in the back,

which was like a big deal.

And it had enough power to go, you know, maybe 90 or 100 miles an hour, which was a big deal in the early 70s.

I mean, the Range Rover also didn't exist in the US at the time.

Correct.

The Range Rover did not make its US debut until 1977.

What year did the Range Rover come out, 70?

70.

I remember 71.

So it was a couple of years old at this point.

And it could therefore, it is likely that it influenced the decisions over at AMC.

Yes.

But also, the Wagonier's existence influenced the existence.

The original Wagonier's existence influenced the arrival of the Range Rover,

because the Range Rover was inspired by the Wagonier, the Bronco, all those station wagon things

that had come out scout, international scout, all those station wagon-shaped things

that were trucks underneath instead of being, you know, no windows and no roof and all that kind of stuff

that you associate with the CJ or Series Land Rover or whatever.

Yeah, that's interesting.

And also, don't forget, Land Cruiser, right?

That also sort of happened a little bit later, a couple of years later, but 67 was the FJ55.

And so this was all sort of all of these car companies were coming to the same conclusions at the same time.

But Cherokee was compact, fuel economy focused, and AMC didn't have enough money to develop a bunch of engines, so they developed one.

And they took their old straight six, the four two, and they cut it down into a four cylinder,

made a new two and a half liter of four cylinder that was like still pushrod.

But it had nox sensor in 1984.

Like, great, and could retard timing on individual cylinders.

Like, it was crazy advanced electronics on what was an ancient design.

The four liter grew out of the four liter straight six that we all know associate with that car, grew out of the two five, I didn't realize this.

So four two was cut down into four cylinders as a two five, and then grew back into a six cylinder as a four liter, which we know is that, you know, indestructible iron block, iron head, lasts five billion miles.

And then the intermediate engine?

Oh, there was one year, the two point eight liter V six from Chevy.

Yes.

It was a Chevy two point eight liter V six, which actually, this is another interesting thing in the research.

AMC refused to give horse power numbers back in the day.

Their policy was to not talk about power.

They didn't want quite as lofty as the whole price, but they just wouldn't talk about it.

And it's a good thing they didn't, because the two five actually made 90 to 90 to begin with.

They later rated it as, but it was actually the same.

At the end, it was like 120, which was more power than the four two had made.

And at the, at the beginning, the four oh made more power than the five nine V eight did.

And the wagon here.

The wagon here now named grand wagon.

So they were sort of, they were battling.

No wonder they didn't want to talk about horse power when their new downsized engines were making, we're making, you know, more horsepower than the old stuff.

The earliest memory that I possess that I know the date of is from when I was two.

And my mom bought a 1986 Cherokee.

Four door.

Okay.

And that is the earliest memory that I actually know the date of.

I was two years old.

I remember going to pick it up from a nurse that she worked with.

Her name was Ruth, and she gave me a cookie.

And I remember all of this.

And there was a Garfield with the suction cups in the window.

I remember backing into the garage at home that when we came home from buying it.

And that is the earliest memory I possess.

It was a five-speed manual 86 with two and a half liter.

Two and a half liter.

Two FRV486 was a license plate number.

Oh.

And had the California Sunset set plates on it.

So my sister's first car.

Have I ever talked about this on this?

I don't think so.

It was an 86 Cherokee.

Two point five liter.

Autotragic.

Two more.

That she saw like parked in someone's driveway.

It was a friend of my aunt's or something.

And she had to have it.

And I don't remember how we got it.

Like my sister had some money saved up.

And my dad added a couple thousand bucks.

I think it was like six thousand bucks or something.

And this thing left her for dead constantly.

Her worst one was on the George Washington Bridge.

It died.

And we finally got it back from that.

And it was like cooling system exploded.

Like it was just the car had sat for like years.

At that point it couldn't have been that many years.

Like I thought it's out forever.

But it was probably only 14 years old or whatever we got it.

Oh, this thing was three years old and we got it.

It couldn't have been 14 years old.

This would have been like 95, 96.

So the car was only 10 years old anyway.

The transmission exploded on the GWB.

That was that was the end.

My dad bought her a new transmission for it.

And then I flew to New York and I was doing something there.

And I drove her to work so that I could use her truck

while she was at work.

And I was on this big hill sitting in traffic

just waiting for like everyone to make it through the stop sign.

And there was this boom.

And next thing I know it doesn't go.

Like but it also didn't have a working e-break.

So I was like, uh oh.

So I'm in the car just doesn't go.

It's in neutral.

And I put it in park and it's still in neutral.

The transmission physically exploded while I was sitting at idle.

And so now everyone, of course you are new.

I mean, I was in white planes in New York.

Everyone is honking and screaming and I'm like,

go around me, go around me.

I have the flashes on it.

Everyone's like, how are you doing in New Yorkers?

And finally somebody stopped and while he was screaming,

I'm like, stop, stop, stop.

I can't get out.

I can't move.

Like I can't do anything because I don't have park.

I have no way of getting out of this car.

And so he called, he said he would go call the police

in a tow truck for me but actually got everyone to move away

enough that I could back down into a ditch

and push it up against a tree to wait for the tow truck.

And I was like, that's it.

And so like a couple months later my sister asked me to come

and get the Jeep and her two cats

because she was going to live with my mom for a little while.

And I was like, oh yeah, I'll do that.

But I, you know, I need the title while I have it just to make sure.

And she's like, okay.

So I drove it to Pittsburgh.

I got a fucking speeding ticket on the way

because she had huge tires on it

and the speedo showed 67.

And I got pulled over and I'm like, officer, I know.

I know I was doing 67.

I've been mad at for miles.

Like that's all this fucking thing we'll do

and I was doing 78 or something.

Like it was way off.

That ticket stuck.

I went and fought it.

There was a state run speedometer testing facility

in Pennsylvania.

Apparently there were two of them in the state.

I drove two hours to one of them.

They verified that I was telling the truth.

The speedo would have said 67 when I was doing 70,

whatever I was.

And the judge still gave me the ticket, that bitch.

In fact, I hope she's dead.

So I was very excited.

I would say it was a four-hour drive to go

to defend myself from this ticket.

And her point was you should have known you were going that fast.

And I'm like, how was I supposed to know?

I just got in this thing.

And she's like, really?

You don't know you're going fast.

I'm like, I was in a shitbox Jeep.

It felt fast.

It felt fast at all speeds.

Yeah.

How am I supposed to know the difference?

Long story that I will.

I still have that ticket.

Oh, I wish nothing, but the absolute worst on that judge.

Anyway.

So that was my first ever, like,

growing up protein.

For hours was great afterwards.

So I get at home back to Pittsburgh.

And I sold it out from...

I didn't tell her.

I just signed the title, sold it to a cop,

which then scared me.

Because I'm like, this guy's going to come back and kill me.

Because the truck broke constantly.

And then bought her a Centra SE with the money.

And I added some money and I did breaks on it, whatever.

So I think we've used that picture in the past,

the little red century.

It's like SER without the R.

Anyway.

With less R.

So my first ever breakdown with a driver's license

was in a two and a half liter Cherokee.

I never drove it.

It was like her daily transport, basically,

until 94.

So five years.

And it had like a 120.

It started getting expensive to keep going.

It was just sort of normal old car stuff,

like the exhaust system rusted out

and stuff like that.

But I remember her being annoyed by it

being old and tired and just expensive to keep going.

And you were seven at this point when she got out of it?

Yes.

I was seven when she got rid of it.

And she traded it in towards...

She put like a stereo that was more expensive than that.

And then she took that out and ended up in another car.

And then she traded the Jeep in on a Range Rover Classic in 1994.

Same basic recipe.

Yeah.

So we took it everywhere.

We went to Tahoe and you know, somebody and like...

And then the nice thing then we've talked about chain control

recently was that if you had four-wheel drive

and snow tires, which much fewer cars did back then,

then you could sort of fuck right off

and past chain control.

And she just didn't want to have to stop a chain control.

And we would go up to Tahoe quite frequently.

So it was...

That was why she had that thing.

I've always had a soft spot for those things.

Mostly because of how they looked

and the fact that it was a four-wheeled tracer.

What color was your sister's black?

So it had originally been like German taxi beige yellow.

And they sprayed it black.

But it was black and they made it look like the limited.

So all I want is a limited.

Like I still want one with the gold wheels and the pinstripe

and whatever.

I thought they were so great looking.

I always had steel wheels and it was burgundy.

It was like dark red metallic and the interior was dark red.

And then the inserts were fabric like white and red

checked fabric inserts with burgundy vinyl.

And I remember when I was a kid I walked up to this thing.

They were on the rocker panels which were just exposed metal.

There were like paint drips from like the...

They stuck out like stalagmites.

Like tights.

Sorry.

And I was like,

Mom, why does this car have these drips like this?

And she said it's not a very high-quality car.

And I was like,

Oh, okay.

That's all she said.

She was like, that's her answer to me.

Mommy bought a piece of shit there.

I was like, you're four years old.

But yeah, it was mostly her daily transport

other than she saw an Audi 5,000 on the side of the road

with a for sale sign and bought it on the spot.

It was like $2,000.

And she was like, this thing's beautiful.

I must have it.

And then it was just an absolute shit heap

because it was an 80s Audi.

But yeah.

I don't think we've done an update since Nick Mercadante was in that seat over there.

Oh, yeah.

I think we talked about on the podcast that he said,

oh, the belt was making some terrible noise.

He was...

He used Haggerty...

Yeah, he got stranded on the way home

from recording Carmugin in his 1980s Audi.

Which, you know...

Oh, no, it's totally fine, really.

He's a standard Audi procedure.

It's apparently thrown that belt a couple more times.

Okay.

So he's giving police.

The belt is not the problem.

It sounds like the belt is a symptom.

The badge on the front of that Audi is the problem.

Oh, yes.

And the back.

And on the wheels.

And on the glass parts.

And all the parts.

Yes.

But I do actually...

So the thumbnail for the episode.

I haven't actually done it yet, because...

We're traveling through time and space.

But the idea is that this really is America's favorite hot hatch.

You know, it is the size of a European hot hatch from today.

Which is not...

I mean, the cough's still not that big.

That much bigger than it was.

Yeah, but everything...

I mean, if you compare it to the contemporary hot hatch,

like you remember, like Suzuki Swift's and like Chevy Sprints

and Mitsubishi Mirages and all those...

We're just coming up with these weird inserts for cars

that nobody has even thought about.

Every time you say you've got to go find a picture or so.

But all those hot hatches...

Or hatches.

Cool.

Cold hatches.

Frozen.

All those hatches back then were very, very tiny.

And so compared to them, the Jeep is big.

But yes, compared to a modern hot hatch.

And it was genuinely fast.

So the final iteration of that earlier...

With the four liter...

We should add...

Well, by the way, it was not slow with the two and a half.

I mean, I remember that car being dangerously slow with the automatic.

But you look at contemporary road tests.

It left...

It dusted everything.

And it dusted the six-cylinder versions of everything.

It was the four-cylinder was the same speed as the 2.8 liter V6.

It was a 2.5 4-cylinder and 2.8 V6.

It was not like they were that far away into displacement.

But it was quick.

It became a rocket at the end.

So when the high output four liter came out was 80, 9 or 90.

Somewhere very early 90s, I think.

I was right when GTI, which was Mark II,

went from...

It started out with a 1.8 liter 8 valve.

Then it went from a 1.8 liter 16 valve to a 2 liter 16 valve.

Were these chronological or were these different trims?

There were...

The 8 valve stayed throughout.

But the 16 valve came in a year later.

The 8 valve GTI was 85.

87 got...

87.

So six months after the short of the 16 valve got a 1.8 liter 16 valve.

And then I think it was 89 or 90.

Got the 2 liter 16 valve.

So a 2 liter Mark II 16 valve is like the holy grail of Mark II GTIs in terms of...

You can make your own determination.

They had motorized seat belts.

Which...

Or whatever.

The motormouse.

They're motored on the carado.

I don't remember.

It's been so long.

They might have just been fixed on the doors.

But they had different seat belts.

They had the big bumpers, which some people like.

Some people don't.

They were available in Montana, Green, which makes me think they're the best.

Either way.

I mean, you know, choose the mirrors moved from the...

Oh, now I'm going to have to find an insert of this.

The rearview mirrors moved from the Mark I position,

which is after the quarter windows.

They made a single piece window on the later cars,

and it moved further over.

And they made all these little detail changes.

But more importantly, the Cherokee with an automatic.

No one seemed...

I couldn't find a single road test of the Cherokee 4 liter,

190 horsepower sport with a manual.

But all the automatics were three tenths of a second quicker to 60 than a GTI.

And then matched the GTI...

Wait, GTI?

Two liter 16 valve.

Matched the two liter 16 valve through the quarter mile traveling faster.

So it was pulling.

So it was still pulling the GTI.

And so, I mean, like, that's some serious performance.

And when the original...

They wrote test of the original, it outcrypto-198 Mercedes,

which is like nuts.

Obviously not a 2.316.

And it was a first year...

So after you did your driving video, was it poised,

or did it feel like...

Lifted on mud tires.

So the single most exciting backroads driving experience

we've ever caught on camera.

Really?

More so...

Then...

Taurus show was nuts, because Taurus show had like $40 tires on it.

What was your previous...

Your previous benchmark, though?

There was some car that you chose as your previous benchmark for...

Of Sierra Cosworth?

No, no.

Longer ago than that.

It was something weird.

Super XT that fell apart.

No, it was weird.

It was good, though.

Your benchmark was something that was good.

I forget what it was.

I was amazing.

P36M3s were both amazing.

That Renault R5 Turbo.

You know I've done 45 episodes of Revelations now.

It's kind of crazy.

I'm trying to think of what...

So on a back road, it was really awesome.

It was...

No.

Well, again, lifted and...

Really amazing.

Sorry.

I had a lot of fun.

Yes.

It was not...

It wasn't by any stretch terrible, but it was probably not as well...

Tuned as a stock one would have been.

But it was still a lot of fun.

And you realize that the thing actually rotates.

You can do power oversteer with an open diff.

Oh, that's right.

These had four low, four high, and two low.

Two low.

Yeah.

So there were two four drive systems available.

There was a part time and a full time.

The industry's actual first full time all the drive system in an SUV.

Taken from the Amc Eagle.

But this was a part time.

So they're rear drive until you pull the lever.

The shift on the fly.

And it genuinely moved up the hill.

We weren't.

Oh, it asked.

It's not...

It sounded nice.

It's got a little bit of an exhaust on that car.

But it really just reminded me that...

This thing is kind of America's hot hatch.

It's hot hatch shaped.

It's just...

It's a Unitary Construction Liverend.

Liverend...

Unitary...

Life, both axles are solid.

Coil springs in the front.

Leaves in the back.

And that was all done for packaging.

Because leaf springs stick out so far.

They needed a long front overhang.

And they wanted space efficiency out of this new smaller SUV.

You'll learn all about it in the episode.

But...

But, you know, people race these in lemons.

Yeah.

I've seen that.

Yeah.

It's pretty cool to see.

So yeah, my thought was, wow.

This really is like 2,900 pound straight six.

Five speed manual rear drive.

Hot hatch.

With live air axles at both ends.

Yeah.

But it did it.

I mean, it's not the most.

Steering is not exactly the most precise.

Because you...

You know, you can't locate a live axle way you can.

But it was good.

And then so we...

I was going to talk about that.

And then we showed up in these today.

So I think what we should do is...

Sure.

Actual hot hatch.

So I think we should pivot to...

Tell everyone to go watch that episode.

You should do.

Especially the drivers here at the end.

I mean, it wasn't like...

I'm not going to get arrested over it.

Because the owner of that car is going to get a giggle when he watches what I did this poor thing.

But I have now spent 250 miles in that Mark VII post doing a clutch or having a clutch done, I should say.

This episode is brought to you by Diet Coke.

You know that moment when you just need to hit pause and refresh.

An ice cold Diet Coke isn't just a break.

It's your chance to catch your breath and save a moment that's all about you.

Always refreshing.

Still the same great taste.

Diet Coke.

Make time for you time.

And I have things to say about the Mark VII GTI, which is sort of the high water mark as far as...

Modern DDD.

Because the market is not as good.

So, you've...

Let's keep it just to VW because we could get, like, sidetracked with Pugeot 205s.

And is there another hot hatch that, like, weave?

We should do a whole episode on.

I mean, there's all kinds of Renault products like the Clio Williams,

which neither of us has ever driven.

I don't even have seen one in person, but everyone says that they're epic.

And I believe them because they're people who might trust.

And, you know, coming from someone who owned a 205 GTI Rally, which is the...

The super mega lightweight one, which was one of the most enjoyable drives I've ever had.

That's the only 205 GTI I've driven.

I've driven one 205 GTI, and I liked it.

Yeah.

Okay, so Mark ones, you've driven both my cabbie and my Shorako.

They are mechanically identical to a Mark I GTI just with...

Twice the power.

So the Mark I GTI on the US is...

Oh, I drove the Mark I that we had on the Volkswagen Street.

Yeah, yeah.

The US car.

It's the silver one.

Yeah.

With the super slow manual steering.

Yes.

Wherever.

Did you drive it hard?

No.

I just moved it around, and maybe three or four corners on the track,

but at, sort of, filming speeds, like with the Beatles.

So they are...

That car was magic on a mountain road.

Like, I genuinely was at 1110s with a thousand-foot drop.

And I kept having to rain myself back in because the car was just so...

Goddamn fun.

And that's with no power.

And the pasta of that car, the worst sounding exhaust I've ever heard in any car in my life ever.

And you know my cars.

Cabbie is closer in...

Imagine the cabbie with 50 fewer horsepower, and that's a GTI.

And that's structure.

Yeah, I was going to ask about structure.

Structure probably has three times the structure of rigidity, so three times zero is zero.

Yes.

Okay.

So it lifts off oversteer, you know, so a neutral handling, adjustable handling.

Yes.

Engine dominates the whole experience because they're all long-stroke, very vocal four cylinders that make really wonderful noises.

Mark II is very much the same experience as Mark I.

I haven't...

It's the generation I've probably driven the least, but to me they always strike me as...

a Mark I on steroids, much different structure.

I really like looking at Mark II's.

I think they're very handsome.

Might be the prettiest of all.

They're sort of even with...

Certainly even with Mark I's in terms of great looks.

A static appeal.

Yeah.

And then we had Mark III.

I had a Mark III golf that I turned into a GTI VR6 forwardor.

You've driven Mark III's?

I don't think I've ever driven a Mark III Volkswagen.

Carrado.

Close enough.

Carrado VR6?

Yes, it was Carrado VR6, but I don't think I got out of third gear or second gear even.

I mean, you can put on Mark...

It's all the same stuff.

It's all...

So Carrado was actually...

Anything in width was B-Series car, meaning Passat.

Anything in length was A.

So it was the length of a golf, but the width of a Passat.

But it's all exactly the same componentry.

Mark III got too heavy for its own self.

Really?

Yeah.

But you do get the VR6?

Yes, which was way too heavy for itself.

So your choice, unfortunately, in Mark III was either VR6, one of the best hunting engines of all time in my book,

or the two-point slow.

People all called it, which are dead reliable, but they are...

This is not a GTI.

It is a two-point slow-ended GTI.

You had a GTI or a GTI VR6.

And the two-point slow was in 8v.

8v.

115 horsepower, 115-pound feet of torque.

And no.

Was it 132?

Whatever it was.

Not a lot of power.

Not a river, but they turned that original 1974 engine into a cross-flow head, at least, for that.

But it was still a single cam 2v, 115 horsepower, two-liter.

And this was the base engine in subsequent golf, even when the beetle came out.

That was that two-point slow lasted forever.

And again, it was literally the 1970s Audi engine, the Audi Volkswagen engine that continued through.

Smoothish.

Smooth enough.

It got the job done, but they were not fast at all.

VR6 was a revelation in terms of sound and speed, because 172 horsepower in a hot hatch was...

And six cylinders, which is just completely insane.

Mark IV was a very different car.

Yeah.

It's like a baby Audi.

Yeah.

Baby Audi, baby Mercedes.

And so in the US, from Mark III, GTI meant two-door.

So they...

Volkswagen's marketing kind of fucked everything up, because they were always...

In the US, and there were always two doors until the Mark IV.

Yes.

But there should have been a golf two-door and a golf four-door, and a GTI two-door and a four-door.

And Mark III there was not.

If you wanted a two-door, you got a GTI.

Oh, I see.

All two-door US golfs were GTIs.

Yes.

Oh, that's why the two points slow.

Two points slow, right?

And so you're...

You're shitting on that name at that point.

Yes.

That shouldn't have had that.

Mark IV was the same way.

You could have a G...

So all the two doors were GTIs.

I had no idea.

I never looked at anything.

I know.

God, this is so long ago.

But there was a GTI GLX, which was the VR6.

Otherwise, it was a 1.8T, which I'm going to get hate on this.

Unpopular opinion, worst engine.

Volkswagen Group has ever made.

I just don't like port injector turbos.

It had five valves for cylinder and didn't breathe nearly as well as the previous four valve head from the 16 valve.

And the idea there was you could...

With turbo charges, you could have a little tiny turbo and have a lot of mid-range torque and not a lot of lag.

Or a big huge turbo and have huge amounts of lag and huge...

A top end power.

Somehow, the 1.8T had nothing.

It had huge lag and then no top end.

Perfectly lovely engine for like a Passat 1.8T automatic, for example.

But they were just dead off-poust.

They didn't pull up top.

They were just not great and never sounded.

Was it from the like sob 900 school of turbo charging?

It should have been, but the sob's...

In terms of you mean like all mid-range?

Yeah.

Yeah, but the sob's had more character.

They had just enough lag and enough like turbo noises to make them fun.

And then I never met a 1.8T that I liked.

You could mod them and a friend of mine was an APR dealer back in the day.

And they would just go for these bigger turbos and bigger turbos.

They literally couldn't make boost under 4,000 and it was all over.

You had five grand to 6,500 and that was it.

So you think it was like a head design where they just weren't efficient at flowing gases?

I see enough people swapped from a 1.8T head back to a 16 valve head and make more power.

There you are.

You need a math.

Okay.

Yeah, I just, I don't...

It's an unpopular opinion.

A lot of people love that engine because as per usual with Volkswagen 4 cylinders,

you can put a billion horsepower to them and they don't break.

But it's harmless.

And four, Mark IV just got luxury and lost the plot, frankly.

And if you go back and look at all the reviews of Mark IV,

they're like, this is not fun anymore.

It's just like driving a mini B5 facade or A4.

Yeah.

In terms of, you know, it's refined.

It was a really nice car.

Yes.

Well made.

It's probably the first well made Volkswagen interior from what I've seen.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was the first...

It was Peac.

Peac took over as Mark III was floundering and he was going to make sure that never happened again.

And so he...

They sold like the Dickens.

Yeah.

They broke all their sales records.

And then we have Derek's Mark V.

You.

The state puffed Marshmello GTR.

Yeah, it's ugly.

I was a journalist when that came out.

And we lost our collective minds because it was so ugly.

But in equal measure, so fucking fun.

Yeah.

Compared to the Mark IV especially.

Well, it was a return to form.

Yes.

And this car shouldn't be a luxury car.

It needs to be...

It needs to let your hair on the fire.

Yeah.

But they didn't lose...

I think, you know, forever gone was the sort of slip shot nature of Volkswagen interiors especially.

And so you still have like a fairly nice interior that...

Like with nice soft touch plastics on the dashboard.

You know, on this ratted out track car thing, the parts of the interior that are still there,

you're like, oh, that's a nice looking dashboard and it's well made and has like a sort of perceived quality

sort of Germanicness to it that for sure differentiated it against sort of the more anonymous Japanese competitors in that category.

For sure.

So that part was nice at least.

It's just not nice to look at.

I mean, you know, there have been uglier cars.

There have been uglier cars.

I struggled to think of any at this particular moment, but I'm sure it may exist.

But just look at it next one, Mark VII.

Mark VII, which we've both said, has the proportions of a hamster somehow looks like a Lamborghini.

But the detailing of the Lamborghini.

The proportions of a hamster with the detailing of a Lamborghini.

This is the Mark V's proportions of a hamster with the detailing of a hamster as well.

But you know, I love this car.

We just took it on a rally.

The large barge charge, which you missed because you were driving the news.

I can't talk about it.

Something, something, something.

I was in the land of rust in Michigan driving a thing.

Yeah, I unfortunately missed it.

It was the rally that I sort of invented, right?

I mean, I said to you, I drove the 850 CSI in the back roads and I'm like, let's do a large part of it.

Well, we also last year had the 560 SCC on the rally, along with a bunch of more suitable rally cars.

And it became clear that between those two things, between the 850 CSI and the just brilliant performance of the 560 SCC,

that we should do a large barge charge.

We later determined that the charge part was also a reference to one's credit card bill,

because it was $130 or $140 to fill the 560 SCC with fuel.

And it would go 112 miles.

Yeah, I think it did crest, it did break 11 miles per gallon on one tank.

That was the high mark or that was the high mark.

Oh my God.

And for comparison, my R129 with the non-CIS injection, with the LH injection,

it was more like 13.5 to 14.5 MPG.

So it's a markedly better fuel economy.

This is why I always say that I prefer the 93.

It's weird to say that fuel economy matters, but when you can't do 200 miles on a tank,

it starts to actually affect the quality of the experience in my opinion.

Oh my God.

So that's why I prefer the better fuel economy of the LH cars than to the CIS cars.

In any case, so my R129 was there.

We had our R129 300 SL.

We had the B5 Audi wagon.

Yes, 300 SL stick.

Dog leg.

The B5 Audi 2.8 V6 Avant with a manual and a Jag F pace SVR.

Are we allowed to talk about that?

I saw videos of that doing donuts.

Yeah, sure.

I don't know the owner.

Donuts were achieved with, and we had an F type SVR as well,

which is not really in keeping with the spirit of the event,

except for that the owner purchased it for $6,000 having been crashed

and repaired it with $500 of eBay parts.

But also it is 4,900,000 pounds.

Yes, it was also bulky.

But the Jags actually were contenders for worst fuel economy together with the 560 SEC.

Super chargers.

Yes.

Yeah, spending fuel to make more power, which needs more fuel.

To make that power, yeah.

The opposite of simplifying and add lightness for fuel economy.

So that was our collection of large barge charge.

And then the GTI came along as a sort of backup car for someone who was more inclined

to optimize heel towing technique for improving the track.

Most of the other cars were automatics, right?

Yes, with the exception of the Audi and the dog leg 300 SL.

So that was the large barge charge.

Highly recommend that activity is very funny.

I got to use the Fredestines, which I learned on the way up our mud and snow rated.

So these are the quadrux?

Quadrux, yes.

Which, you know, don't have the most grip.

I was a little bit envious of the Continentals on the other R129.

But it was very much possible to maintain a pace that was consistent with the rest of the field.

So it didn't slow you down.

It didn't slow us down.

Those are the winter tires that I have on the E-Golf.

And I also have those same tires on the pitch basking on the cabriolay.

And I was in the E-Golf with Nick Marquitante, actually.

And I flew around a corner and they just started to squeal a little way.

He's like, man, these PS4s have so much grip still.

I'm like, these are the all season quadrux.

They make a lot of noise when you're not squealing noise.

But the moment you start to, no, it's more like as soon as you turn in and they start to go like,

it's not a squeal, it's like you can hear the tires are working.

But it's like at very low demand.

And that was interesting because you could adjust the volume of it based on how much demand, cornering demand you were making.

They're local tires.

They are for sure.

But only when you're laterally accelerating.

The one comment I'll make about those tires on the E-Golf is that.

And we keep meaning to do a tire episode, and we have to come back to this.

But I still haven't done my all track pro, the summer tires on that car yet.

But in a straight line, I get a...

But it's not like a broken band sound that you get like that.

But there's just like a not constant resonance that I get from the tires that I didn't get from the mission.

I have the same tires on our company service wagon.

And I've noticed the same thing on those tires.

It's not offensive at all.

No, it's just kind of there.

And they definitely once you, soon as you get a little...

Soon as you get a little last side load.

It's not a squealing sound, but it's definitely like a whooshing noise.

You hear the tread deflect for sure.

It's a whooshing noise.

But overall, they held up beautifully to the copious abuse that we applied to them.

Always one of my favorite parts of this activity is evangelizing Soko-Iram Mercedes-Benzes

to people who don't think of them in that way, including ourselves,

because it took us years to figure out this was possible,

other than our one friend with a dog like 300SL who's been doing this for years.

We all thought he was insane.

And then we learned that it was actually a really superb rally car.

But yeah, getting people who are like, what are you doing in these old automatic,

you know, 4,000 pound barges,

and then getting them on back goes on them and be like, wow,

that's quite the sort of chassis engineering that isn't incorporated in this car.

I mean, I love how you're like, oh, we just realized,

I'm going to take this video that we're going to use as an insert.

There is Derek.

Derek is right there.

And now, I'm going to show what's in the background is my Soko era 2.316.

Oh, hi, Jake.

I'm going to wave that.

Yeah, some of us realized a long time ago that Soko-Iram Mercedes-Benzes are...

Yeah, but you expect that of the cause worth.

As a sort of homologation racing car.

But not...

You don't expect it to be baked into the 4,000 pound plus...

All of all of that Error Mercedes had spectacular chassis belts.

Okay, we're getting away from hot hatches.

Yes, we very much are.

But we can use chassis belts to get back to your Mark V.

Because that's the one big deficiency on that.

Yes, so it was on the rally and as normal,

we rotate in and out of everybody's cars,

anyone who's interested to participate can sort of say,

I would give up my car and I would drive this one.

So everyone gets to experience it.

And, you know, one of the attendees, one with the Jag,

the Jag SUV, the F-Pace SVR,

as opposed to the F-Type.

It was very confusing on the...

Stupid game.

But he got into that thing,

and he tracks normally AC7 Grandsport,

and they also have a C6 Grandsport,

and they had a CT4 Blackwing that they would also track.

And so they're into these high horsepower V8 cars,

and he got into the GTI, and he came out.

He's like, this was the drive of the weekend.

I was so not expecting to like this thing,

and it was just hilarious and fun,

and it corners like it's on rails.

Of course, he was coming out of barges.

Everything corners like it's on rails.

No, but that car is...

Yeah, it's really a pleasure to drive,

except for I bought it as a track car,

and on track I find it immensely frustrating,

because it's such a fun backroads car.

And then on track, it just has this

irretrievable tendency to terminal understeer

that's really frustrating,

especially because I used to have a Miata track car before.

You cannot get that car to rotate.

I mean, we were talking to Randy Popes about this,

and we mentioned this on the podcast a couple of episodes ago.

Yeah, Randy had a problem when he was racing them.

They just couldn't get them to rotate.

I tried.

Reverse stagger.

Like, we're tire pressure imbalances.

Like sway bar fiddling.

Like, just will not rotate.

But on the road, that is one of the most fun

backward cars I've ever driven.

It's weird to say about a turbocharged front wheel drive car, right?

I know, I know.

And so, like, we paid $4,000 for this car

plus an espresso machine, and it was set up

with exactly the way you see it now.

I think we've aligned it and changed the oil.

We haven't even put tires on it.

It's Duford, timing belt in the water pump, for sure.

But just hilarious.

And it's also much faster than, you know,

the Miata around track.

It's not going to teach you as much as the limit.

Yeah, it's one dimensional at the limit, which is frustrating.

But as a rally device and just a general piece of entertainment,

I could not recommend that experience more highly.

Let's get back to Mark V for a second.

Let's go to Mark VI.

Do you own experience with Mark VI?

I have never driven a Mark VI.

Okay, Mark VI is a facelift in Mark V.

Yeah, and man did it work because it sure looks a lot better.

It's amazing that they use the same glass and doors, right?

It looks so much like a Mark VII.

But that one got electric power steering.

And that was the...

And this is the...

The Mark V had the electric hydraulic...

Each pass, each.

Yeah.

Which is that it's an electric motor driving hydraulic pump instead of...

So you still have the feedback of conventional...

I mean, from the driving perspective, it is hydraulic power steering.

Yeah.

It's not driven directly.

It's driving the pump.

Yeah, and set it off the end.

Mark VII was the first ground up all-new car.

From in the whole GTI lineage.

Everything else was a PQ sort of series.

This is just an evolution, another evolution, another evolution, another evolution.

MQB, which is the chassis that underpins Mark VII, is...

And eight.

Now, it's bespoke.

I mean, it wasn't...

No, bespoke was brand new.

And I went on the launch of six and I went on launch of seven.

And I could not get over how great seven was when I drove it.

And then when we got them home, we were like,

OK, this is the best $50,000 car you can buy.

And it comes with a 50% off coupon.

Factory.

Right?

It was just for 25,000 bucks, you couldn't touch.

And this stands true of all Mark VII's.

Whether it's a Golf 1.8 TSI or...

That was the base motor.

The later cars had one fives in...

I think in Jetta's, I don't remember if Golf's whatever,

doesn't matter whether it's one eight or two liters...

It has to be a Golf.

It has to be a Golf, not a Jetta.

Jetta went to MQB for now, but yeah, at the time it wasn't.

But that MQB platform is unbelievable in terms of its NVH and refinement

and interior material qualities.

Mark VII was better than Mark VII in half,

but we're talking detailed differences here.

And now that I've spent a couple hundred miles in a Mark VII,

I'm going to say something that I...

I'm not that surprised to hear, let me say,

but all my friends who own GTI's are,

I would genuinely rather drive the E-Golf.

It's a tough thing to say,

because they have the same car, right?

This has much quicker steering and much better seats in terms of...

They look more bolstered.

And a much better gear change.

Well, it has a gear change.

It's much better, therefore.

But technically, a much more vocal engine.

But they're effectively the same car.

The suspension is a bit softer on the E-Golf.

The E-Golf rotates better in corners with that sway bar.

Certainly than the GTI does.

Well, you have to drive the GTI with the reverse sway bar.

Yeah, I have not done it.

But I have.

I drove a 0-4 Motorsport car and your car.

But I prefer the suspension tuning on the E-Golf.

So with 18 more like a Sako era Mercedes.

This is by no...

The GTI is by no means harsh ever.

But that has 18s on it.

And my E-Golf has 18s on it in the summer.

And the E-Golf rides better and out grips the golf.

It's better weight distribution.

It only weighs...

I think my car's 3,400 pounds with the big battery in the sub

and all the rest of the shit that I have in there.

That is 30, 20, 30, 50.

And one of this is 400 pounds difference-ish.

But it's weight in the right spot.

So the E-Golf actually rides better and out grips it.

And is better at the limit.

Although, yeah, I don't have a diff.

So I've, you know, flat out on a back row.

This car is going to be quicker because it has an actual locking front diff.

And about a million times the power.

I mean, this isn't...

The person who is...

going to buy these cars is probably not going to cross shop them anyway

because they are sort of different philosophically.

For me, it was a range issue.

Well, I was going to say, you owned both.

I did own both.

And I owned the E-Golf first.

And then I ended up with the GTI later.

And I do think fondly back on the GTI.

And I miss it to some extent, for sure.

But not the E-Golf.

I miss having an EV.

It just was unonviable for what I was going to use the car for.

Right? When you want something modern and mindless to go drive for three or four hours

to go to, you know, up the coast or to the mountains or just a long sort of road trip type car.

It doesn't work.

The E-Golf didn't work for that.

And it was my only modern car at the time.

And so, like, that would be a thing that I like modern cars for

because you can get in and fire and forget.

You don't have to worry about, am I going to make it or whatever.

I mean, I would say, I will maintain Saco Euremer City does that.

And so I'm now functionally, I'm doing that exact thing with a 25-year-old car

in the form of the C-43.

But, you know, if I had a modern car that had heated seats

and sort of just I knew was always going to function,

then I wanted it to be able to do that mission.

And I also wanted it to be Cornflower Blue and have Pretoria wheels and, you know,

the seats and it may be a manual.

And just the Mark VII GTI was really ideal for that.

And I would definitely own another one and use it for the same mission.

I look, if I had a car that I needed to do everything, if I, you know,

had a spot for a car that needed to do everything and had to commute and whatever else, sure.

The problem is, I don't want one car that does everything well.

But in town, so what I need to go for is in town.

Like, that right there, that has a six-foot-long drive shaft in it right now.

And you don't see it sticking through the windshield in the hatch.

Like, the usability is like unbelievable.

But to me, where that GTI is least happy is first and second gear stuff around town.

And that's where the EGolf, I would say, is best.

But it's the only place it lives.

Like, it doesn't do highway.

It doesn't do fast, you know, back roads.

It doesn't do any of that stuff.

But where I need a car for around a city and there's just no, the EGolf is so much faster

because of the response and the lack of turbo lag.

Well, it's for your specific use case.

Yeah, and it doesn't light up the front wheels.

Like, I have to turn traction control off.

That one has shitty bridge stones on it.

I have Michelin's about to go on it.

But it can't put down the power in second.

And so the idea of just flat-footing a car and beating everyone through the lights versus...

It's just on the car feels too much lag and too much power for its own good.

And it's not, and this is where I'm going to mention my really unpopular opinion,

it's not anywhere close to as much fun as the Mark V was.

Yeah, not as much texture.

There's definitely a loss of texture.

I think the Mark V has an abundance.

I think the Mark V was...

Yeah, but you can't make a Mark V rotate.

Yeah, but as a...

Okay, there is no perfect GTI, I guess.

But if I were buying one for fun, if it's not a Mark...

If it's got to be a modern turbocharged one, it's going to be five.

Otherwise, it's one and two.

What's wrong with six?

Oh, you lost the hydraulic system.

You lost hydraulic system.

And gained.

I just really like looking at the six compared to the five.

I know.

It's a flawed lineup.

Yeah.

I mean, trade one thing for another.

I would do the Mark VII just to have this sort of modernity.

You know, when you get to cars that are 15, 20 years old and it's a Volkswagen product,

it's just like check engine lights, you know, like that whole thing.

I guess maybe Mark VII's are getting old enough that that's starting to be a part of the existence with them.

I mean, when I had mine, it was two years old and so it wasn't really an issue just yet.

And so that sort of...

Oh, I'm sure they're well on their way now for, yeah, the 15s, the early cars that have 130,000 miles on them.

So what I'm hearing, and that was one of the reasons I was willing to buy that from my niece,

is they have water pump issues.

That's it.

Like, that's the sort of big thing.

They don't have coil packs and misfires on this cylinder and that cylinder and check engine lights.

I mean, you know, beat the shit out of anything longer.

I don't know.

We'll find out.

I mean, I'm sure everyone who owns one knows.

And the joke is still the check engine light as part of VW life, but I mean, this car has never had any repairs

according to the previous owner.

Except for the paint ones.

Well, paint, yeah.

And I mean, you know, now it just did get a clutch and it did get a 0-4 resonator delete.

Because it wasn't that loud.

You can't even tell.

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

I feel a little bad about this.

You can't.

It now went from being completely silent to almost completely silent.

They need an exhaust code red.

But yeah, I mean, just such a good car.

Like it's just a good everyday car, but it reminds me that turbos and manuals just don't sing.

Yeah, driving around in the city, it was something you tolerated because it was good at doing other things,

but with the heavy-duty clutch in there, which was a little bit juttery, it just juttery.

Yeah, juttery.

This one is not too.

And this one is programmed that the programming is coming out.

It is way too fast.

Way too fast.

Way too.

Yours was 0-3-4 programming.

Stage 1.

Yeah.

Which promptly confirmed that the clutch was at the end of its life.

How many miles were on your car?

30, something 30, 32 when it got the tune.

This one turned 74,000 and I mean, one full throttle and clutch was done.

Yeah.

The standard clutches in those cars are not up to surviving any state of tune.

Well, now this one will go back to stock tune plus upgraded clutch and hopefully that means

100,000 miles of not thinking about it.

Yeah, I really want that interior, those seats in my, mostly for the way they look,

because the flat is amazing in the eGolf.

But hot hatches are magic.

Yeah, there is a sort of real worldness to them that is,

it took me a while to figure out and to meet it.

But I totally get it now and I adore the genre.

It just doesn't make sense in a lot of places in the United States.

You need to have elevation gain and the terrain that comes with that and then the tight roads

that then come from that.

If you don't have that type of road, I think it might be hard to,

I think it might be easy to miss the brilliance of the hot hatch formula.

Fair point.

I mean, we have to think about in a city like this.

We have to think about parking, about length for parking spots.

Sure.

That's a non-issue in most of the US.

But also, if you don't do any twisty roads that are bumpy and have elevation gain and stuff like that,

then you will never get to meet the coolest part of your GTI.

What are you going to drive instead, like that's where you go by a CD5E black wing or something?

Sure.

Yeah.

I mean, that's obviously not the right price point.

But, you know, then you could choose depreciated thing with the aid with lots of power, you know.

Or even the Civic Type R.

I mean, Civic Type R is a great example.

Although, we don't have snow here and from what drive cars in the snow, that's why everyone wants all of it.

Better than rear-wheel drive.

That's fun.

Yes, but more likely to get you there.

Fair point.

Yeah, we live in a very strange geographical area.

I mean, it has a lot in common, I'd say, with portions of Europe, exactly.

That's why the car works well in this area.

Was the number one selling car in many a couple years ago?

In San Francisco, when I looked, it was mini.

Like, this is ridiculous.

This is a part of the snow.

I mean, that's because there's a bunch of people who have houses built in 1907,

right after the earthquake collapsed and burned down most of the city,

which means that none of them originally had garages, which means when they have garages in them,

they excavate underneath the house.

And so you have this really weird, gnarly driveway with insane breakover angles

and small garages because there was not supposed to be garages.

And so everybody buys a tiny parking spot.

So you're like, I can have that spot because no one with a real car can fit in it.

So you combine all those things and you end up with everybody buying a mini.

It's so funny.

We were walking out of one of the parks in San Francisco history.

In one block, there were five smart cars.

Five smart cars parked on the street in one block.

It's a city car.

You don't even see that in Europe.

But you know, all these things.

Well, Europe, there's enough other small cars that you don't see that many smart cars.

Exactly.

Any number of other small cars.

There's just one street, just one block.

Just had a bunch of parking spots that would never have fit a mini or a golf or anything else.

And so you have somebody who's got this house and they're like,

okay, well, if I want to park in the street, I have guaranteed free parking in front of my house all the time.

Until all the asshole neighborhood park.

Everybody has a neighbor on the street by his smart car.

And you can't park them sideways in the US.

Not legally.

I did that and I was with a client who did that in his crossblade,

which is the crossblade is the no windshield, no doors version of the smart car.

Then they made like some relatively small number.

I think it was 2000 or something of them.

But he parked it perpendicular to the curb.

And you know, he's a collector.

He's a collector with lots of Lamborghini's and Ferrari's and stuff like that.

And he's like, this is my favorite car.

And my whole collection is this smart car that has no windshield.

And of course, it has a very suitable smart car story,

which is that it was a tender on a yacht.

Like when the people on big yachts, right, when they land around the world,

they use it the way of Fiat Jolly would be to drive around the Marina.

And you just, you don't have to walk around when you're not on your yacht.

And golf cart.

Yes, exactly.

And so they, it was the, and on that, and then it was, you know,

they weren't sold in the United States, the crossblade.

And it broke while it was here.

And they left it at some shop to be fixed.

And then like they just, the shop, when they finished it,

they couldn't get hold of the owners.

The owners forgot that they had left it.

Oh.

So it was leansailed and then ended up in the United States through that avenue.

So that's a very small number of crossplates in the United States,

because they're not 25 years old yet, so you can't import them.

But there's like a cult falling for people who are super into cross-blade smart cars.

I love that the, the one cheerone owner who is now,

since it's sold to, sold to cheerone, drives a smart ED every day.

That was just hilarious to me.

I must have something to get with the shops.

Yep.

I'm not British, but in my mind he could be.

Okay.

Well, I hear by declare that after spending some more time with the Marks Heaven,

that the Mark V was more fun.

The EGolf is a better city car.

But I maintain there is no better car

for a geographical, sort of like San Francisco.

Yeah, for car, car-doing things.

Yeah, I would absolutely own another one.

I look forward to the day for you to have another one,

because then you can stop being such an old car we need.

Yeah, I would do it.

I mean, I just, I need to be a rabbit.

It need to be one of the 500, and of which I think half or manual,

half or DSG, of course.

Why?

I said, it's all about corner hope.

I want the blue, and I want that interior, and I want LED headlights.

That's why sport.

Yeah, sport.

They started doing in 2017.

17, yeah.

17's was cloth seats.

No sunroof.

But if I don't have the good headlights.

Yeah, those are the good ones.

They're adaptive.

They do the left-right spinning up down.

And they have the corner marker.

You turn the wheel, and there's a separate, like, each one bulb that lights up.

Yeah, so that works, but I just can't do black.

They were available in all colors.

Not blue.

Not that blue.

What I want is a Mark 7.5 Euro light.

So Euro Tail Lighted.

Sport with a sunroof.

Oh, but all of the...

Yes, that's the great fault screen is the other, like, must-have color.

The problem is any car that has a sunroof has a leather interior.

Yeah, which was dumb.

Yeah.

Product planners who don't know that you leave a sunroof open,

and then you burn your ass on hot leather.

Stupid.

Anyway, we'll call it here.

We like GTIs.

Go and work.

Big shocker.

Yeah, shocker.

But I also, like, Jeep Cherokeys, and we both have formative early young experiences.

Was that...

You're the 0.5 liter Cherokeys.

Was your first...

If we could do the math on this, but my breakdown was probably around the same time as your mom had hers.

So...

Yeah, it was 89 to 94.

Okay.

I was a little bit later.

So...

No, number of 94.

And despite the fact that you're 41 years younger than I am,

your formative Jeep experience was before mine.

Pretty...

Well, I was two.

Hundred.

Two hundred.

Yes.

Okay, thank you for joining us.

We'll see you next week in all probably likelihood.

And by that, I mean, you'll see us.

And only if you're watching on YouTube.

Bye.

Crowning The Hatchback King — The Carmudgeon Show w Jason Cammisa & Derek Tam-Scott — Ep. 191

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