GTS

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VW Scirocco GTS – Fat Bottom, Small Wonder

 

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In an age when we have come to accept the ‘fuller’ figure as a matter of course, the VW Scirocco fits in perfectly with the human demographic. Yes, it seems the svelte 1980s Scirocco has been replaced by a car with a large behind.

Nothing wrong with that, of course. The current version is still a very pretty car, it just appears to have eaten far too many buns when you view it from the rear. Quite why that is, who knows. Maybe to distinguish it even more from the Golf GTI?

We think the GTS is especially pretty, with a sublime interior too. It’s just a shame the GTS has to come with those two, wide stripes plastered over the bonnet and roof. If it was my car, I’d be out there with a hairdryer right now trying to remove the decals.

If you want to stand out from the rest of the Scirocco crowd, the GTS is a great way to do it. It’s just a shame that it costs so much and therefore competes head-on with  the latest GTI itself. A car built on a better platform, that goes even faster and offers more practicality.

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VW Scirocco – The Naughty Button

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I love ‘Sport’ mode on automatic gearboxes. It’s like pressing the naughty button. Let’s face it, we don’t want to be penny-pinching economy misers all the time, do we?

I’ve driven the Scirocco GTS in sensible ‘normal’ mode for 90 per cent of the week, so today I gave the VW what it had been waiting for. The chance to open up on a winding Cotswold road and blow the cobwebs out of those twin exhaust pipes.

The result? A totally different car. The Porsche 911 and Aston Martin Volante both have similar buttons but I didn’t realise how much a performance tweak the Sport button on the Scirocco accounted for. It was quite a different car.

The gearbox sounded very sweet, holding on to the revs much higher up the range and, when changing down, it sounded amazing too. Now, I don’t expect them to start fitting a naughty button to a Polo or Up! but let me tell you, it’s the most fun you can have in a Volkswagen these days…