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This car certainly can move

Thursday, 11 March 2010

HENRY Ford, whose father hailed from West Cork, had a mantra for customers, saying ‘you can have any colour you want, once it’s black.’ I reckon there must be some fans of Henry in the Volkswagen design studios in Germany. Their new Golf GTD is predominantly black inside, except for a touch of grey on the ‘posterior hugging’ seats and silver on the dash and steering wheel. And there was no getting away from black as the exterior colour of my test model was also black. Still I preferred black to the white GTI I wrote about a few weeks back. The GTI was fast and expensive. The 2.0 GTD is also fast, but not as expensive with prices starting at e33,410 for the two-door manual. This diesel version won’t have you stopping at your local filling station as often. The front of the car is recognisable by its honeycomb grille. The rear is a bit bland, but the twin exhausts do help. Overall it’s deceptively spacious, with plenty of room for five adults. The boot is a decent size and you get a full-size spare wheel. This car certainly can move and with 170 brake horse power, you won’t be left stalled at the traffic lights. Tyres are very important on all cars, but especially so on such a fast motor. The GTD is fitted with Dunlop SP Sport Maxx. They certainly help you enjoy a comfortable drive and you get good grip in all kinds of weather. You can’t beat the Germans for efficiency and simplicity. The radio is excellent and has two decent-sized knobs, one to turn the radio/CD on and off and the other to scroll up and down the wavelengths. Everything on the dash is well laid out and easy to use and the instrument lights are now white instead of blue. The dash is rounded off by a very sporting-looking steering wheel, which is flat at the bottom. Of course there are lots of extras. But I must be honest and say that I wouldn’t know the difference between ‘Seattle’ and ‘Vancouver’ alloys. The 17 inch ‘Seattle’ ones are standard in the GTD, but my test model was fitted with what I presume were posher 18 inch ‘Vancouver’ alloys. Naturally you have to pay for all those extras and those ‘Vancouver alloys’ and Sports suspension brought the price of the four-door car tested to e35,446. So it’s a hard call between the GTI and the GTD. The GTI is probably more attractive for younger people, but if you are over 30 and cover a lot of miles every week, you can still raise a bit of dust in the diesel GTD. It also has lower C02 emissions and so is cheaper to tax. Ultimately it may come down to how much money you can afford to borrow. Other colours available include: Tornado Red, Carbon Grey, Reflex Silver or Shadow Blue. Incidentally Henry Ford did produce Model T cars in colours other than black before he moved into assembly-line production. Then he opted for black as it was a good colour to dry quickly.