2009 Volkswagen Scirocco Las Vegas NV

2009 Volkswagen Scirocco - The Car America Should Have By Todd Turner, DriverSide Contributor

Volkswagen has a long history of fielding cars in what was once referred to as the “small and sporty” segment. Cars that lacked the pedigree and/or the credentials of bona fide sports cars were slotted into a category dominated by cars that looked sporty, but didn’t have the capabilities of true sports cars. An old rancher in Texas might call them “all hat and no cattle.”

VW’s first real entry in this segment may have in fact started the segment. The Karmann Ghia of the 1950’s was a very sporty, sexy looking car that had the same underpinnings as the Beetle. And Disney movies aside, the Beetle was never much of an enthusiast’s car, with 0-60 times being measured with the minute hand and not the second hand. When the last Karmann Ghia rolled off the assembly line in Osnabruck, Germany, VW was all ready to bring out a new kind of car – more capable, but still based on the pedestrian car, though this time one with much more performance potential. The first Scirocco was a front-wheel drive 2-plus-2 coupe that used the underpinnings of the revolutionary Rabbit , or Golf as it was known in Europe.

Fast forward about 30 years and VW has gone through two distinct versions of the Scirocco, and even had the gall to replace it with a car called the Corrado ; look it up, it was a nice looking if not terribly exciting car, with incredible handling and driving performance, limited by a supercharged engine VW called the “G-Lader” which was powerful, but sounded like the Worlds’ biggest Hoover vacuum cleaner. It also suffered very high failure rates, further driving down the reputation of VW quality. The overpriced Corrado was short lived not just in America but in Europe as well, and when its production ended in 1995 VW took a long hiatus on fielding a car in this segment. 

VW chose the occasion of the Geneva Motor Show in March of 2008 to show the newest Scirocco, the same show used to launch the original Scirocco 34 years before. Stylistically, the new Scirocco is aerodynamically sleek and yet also defined by a number of vertical elements that give it an obviously substantial presence, partly due to a very wide track. The car looks hunkered down to the road, like it’s not just riding on it, but prowling on it - especially from the rear. When you approach from behind you get the idea that the car in front of you is a much more expensive and respectable car than you might surmise from its logo. 

Unlike some of the cars in the class of the past, this wide track gives the new Scirroco road hugging and handling abilities that seem more fairly be compared with something from the animal kingdom than the automotive world. Think of a cheetah chasing a gazelle and you get the idea. It’s downright spunky in its character, tossable ...

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