By Christopher Sawyer
The Virtual Driver

(October 29, 2020) Let me get this out of the way up front: I actually like SUVs. They make a certain amount of sense for people, especially as they — after the minivan delivered the initial blow — killed off the station wagon. Or killed it off with the help of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) legislation, trucking deregulation that put many, many more heavy trucks on the road, and concerns about crashworthiness. Plus, if you want to go off-road, all the better, even though the most off-roading your vehicle will do is when the valet parks it on a dirt overflow parking lot.

Now that we have that out of the way, I can impart information about my newest purchase. No, it’s not an SUV. (Were you paying attention?) It’s a car. Specifically, a 2021 VW Jetta R-Line. It’s my second, and it comes a little earlier than planned due to the high demand for low-mileage, well cared-for used vehicles. With less than 12,000 miles on the odometer, it fits the bill.


2021 VW Jetta R Line

So it wasn’t a complete surprise when my dealer asked if we’d like to slip out of current lease and into a new one for exactly the same monthly payment. All we had to do was choose our options and color. The current Jetta (my fourth) is painted Pure White, a color that looks clean when it isn’t and will blind when it is. The color was a surprise choice of the other half, but not as much a surprise as the R-Line trim. Being on a retiree’s budget narrows your choices, and makes you, as the knight said to Indiana Jones in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” choose wisely.

That’s why I expected an SE with its dull-as-dishwater monochrome interior; perfect for engendering thoughts of suicide. Instead we got the R-Line with its two-tone gray interior, though without all of the electronics that are fun to play with, but hard to justify when you write each monthly check.

Those with a sharp intellect will notice that the previous Jettas were of the dull-as-dishwater variety, though, in their defense, the color combinations weren’t so suicidal. I’ll admit, the first Jetta — a beautiful dark blue with a beige-ish interior — almost made me cry. I had just been downsized in the aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown, and had to economize where possible. This meant the beautiful dark gray GTI sitting on large “Detroit” wheels would be replaced by a much more financially sound Jetta SE.

The only saving grace — other than its low monthly payment — was that it was still a manual, though a five-speed instead of a six-speed. I wanted to cry when I flung it into a corner on a test drive, and cringed at the literally offbeat thrum of its five-cylinder motor. But I survived, and discovered that you can do a lot with tire pressures to get a car’s responses more to your liking. It wasn’t what I wanted, but it would have to do.

The next one was silver and had an automatic (her choice, and one that continues). It was followed by the first-generation U.S.-built Passat, itself a stretched and widened version of the Jetta I’d just traded-in. That car was h-u-g-e on the inside, and had a trunk large enough to make a Mafia hitman or Amazon delivery person cry with joy. Sure, the interior plastics were not soft to the touch, but they held up well and didn’t squeak or rattle. We’d gotten that car because it was the same price as the Jetta at the time, and we wanted something different. And, being Jetta-based, tire pressures could do wonders, especially for those of us raised on small-bore, low-power machines that require the conservation of cornering energy to be swift.


2012 Volkswagen Passat

Still, the whole SUV sat in the back of my mind. We’d borrowed an Atlas to take the equivalent of a month’s inventory from Frankenmuth, Michigan’s world-famous Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland store to her sister in Virginia, packing that commodious beat to the roof with all of our excess ornaments, trees, and more. It, too, was an R-Line, and devoured the roads from Michigan to Virginia with ease. The interior did, however, seem a little “brittle” in the same way as the Passat had, and the vehicle itself lacked a distinct personality; much like the neighborhood accountant who dresses well but is otherwise invisible. Also, the Atlas was just too big. It didn’t make sense for two people to drag that much sheetmetal around when the need for it wasn’t pressing.

Another possibility was the Tiguan, which had just been redesigned. Larger than the original, it was still trimmer than the Atlas, easier to park, and didn’t make you feel like you were driving a four-bedroom house when you looked over your shoulder. Built on VW’s modular MQB structure — like the Atlas, current Jetta and Golf — it was the sportier choice of the two, though it really didn’t hold much more than the Passat.

2018 Volkswagen Tiguan

Then there’s the fuel economy. While both the Atlas and Tiguan return competitive real world numbers, they aren’t as thrifty as their sedan counterparts. Unless, that is, you follow the industry norm of comparing the fuel economy of your SUV with the sedan that’s one size up. This began when Jim Farley, before he became Ford’s CEO, compared the mileage of the Escape and Fusion. The proper comparison was with the Escape’s platform mate, the Focus. Soon every automaker followed, and the industry soon was awash with apples-to-oranges comparisons. This trick also made it seem as though SUVs weren’t egregiously priced, as their MSRPs hewed more closely to the larger sedans against which they were compared and brought in greater profits.

Having a (very) slight amount of Scottish blood (Why waste it if you don’t have to?), I like the idea of fuel efficiency, as long as I don’t have to give up performance. The Jetta’s surprisingly spirited turbocharged 1.4-liter four-cylinder isn’t  a small block V8, but it also isn’t profligate thanks, in part, to being mated to an eight-speed automatic. But there’s a bigger reason for choosing the small sedan over an SUV — bigger, even, than the real world 43 mpg average it returns at highway speeds.  It’s not an SUV.


2022 Volkswagen Taos

Stand on any street corner and note the vehicles that go by. Eliminate the delivery trucks, handyman vans and pickups and all other vehicles that aren’t privately owned by individuals, and you’ll quickly notice that the streets of the world are awash in SUVs and pickup trucks. Everyone everywhere is driving a vehicle more capable and commodious than they really need. Image has overtaken reality as we live vicariously off the tough, off-road image of vehicles we buy because we have convinced ourselves that they are safer and roomier, even when we rarely need the carrying capacity.

A higher seating position? Great, if you look down the road past the car ahead of you. Except that most drivers don’t. They are dangerously myopic behind the wheel and often distracted. Safer? Maybe. The increase in the number of heavy trucks on the road has driven an increase in the size of our pickups and SUVs, which has made it more difficult to see what’s ahead or around you. All of which, like the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, drives an arms race of size. Easier ingress and egress? Sort of, but that’s been driven by the move toward steeply sloped windshields and rooflines that make sedan and coupe door apertures inconvenient at best. Move beyond these things, and you find there’s little to recommend SUVs other than the profit margin they command for their makers.

So I’ll be bucking the trend once again, eschewing a more common SUV for an uncommon sedan. One that gets better mileage, is easier to maneuver, isn’t found on every street and street corner, and is plenty roomy for my needs. Oh, and one more thing. It’s less expensive. I can live with that, even though I wonder about the new small Taos to be introduced this summer...